Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash. Fourteenth fic in the Cloak and Dagger series, sequel to 'Dictionary of Losses.' Alone in the cursed house that's the only place that will shelter them, Harry and Draco labor to prove their innocence, get revenge on Draco's ex-parents, and earn their jobs as Aurors back. But not without quarrels and danger, of course. COMPLETE.
1. Cuthbert's Corner Again

**Title: **Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco, Lucius/Narcissa

**Warnings: **Violence, angst, gore, torture

**Rating: **R

**Summary: **Alone in the cursed house that's the only place that will shelter them, Harry and Draco labor to prove their innocence, get revenge on Draco's ex-parents, and earn their jobs as Aurors back. But not without quarrels and danger, of course.

**Author's Notes: **This is the fourteenth fic in the Cloak and Dagger series, about Harry and Draco as Auror partners who hunt down Dark wizards. It follows "Invisible Sparks," _Hero's Funeral, _"Rites of the Dead," _Sister Healer, _"Working With Them," _This Enchanted Life, _"Letters From Exile," _Writ on Water, _"Evening Star," _The Library of Hades, _"There Was Glory," _A Reign of Silence, _and "Dictionary of Losses." You should read those fics before tackling this one. This fic will probably be somewhere between 15 and 20 chapters.

**Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity**

_Chapter One—Cuthbert's Corner Again_

"This is farewell."

Harry, standing behind Draco, didn't have as good a view of the tall, silver-haired man in front of them as Draco did, but he didn't think he was wrong about the relief in those dark eyes. The man nodded once, then stretched his hand out. Scars covered the palm, threading back and forth, making marks like the seams of a Muggle baseball.

"You have been good friends to me," Draco said, shaking the man's hand.

_And they've been better friends than us, _Harry thought. Perhaps the thought was reflected in the eyes of the man before he lowered them.

"Come back when you need to," he murmured. Ris, as he called himself, leader of the Demlan Werewolf Pack, had a thick voice and sounded like he was growling even when he made a deliberate effort to sound light and sprightly. "You know that the debts of friendship you created in the past can never be repaid."

Draco was moving tightly enough when he stepped back from Ris that Harry clasped his shoulder. Draco reached back and took Harry's hand with a slow, caressing motion, but didn't remove his eyes from the werewolf as he studied Draco from top to foot.

"I doubt that," Draco said. "I know that our coming here caused you trouble, and I'm not even a member of a powerful pure-blood family that can make it worth your while to shelter us anymore."

Ris grinned abruptly enough that Harry's hand went to his wand. He hadn't learned much comfort around the suddenly moving werewolves in the last fortnight. "You weren't a member of that family when you came to us in the first place, Draco. It's only the official stripping of your name that was missing. It's the Ministry and not your family that worried us." He reached up, slowly enough that neither Harry nor Draco touched their wands again, and tapped his balled fist gently against Draco's temple. "Come to us when you aren't being hunted and you'll have a better reception."

He turned and loped into the shadows of the forest before either of them could say anything. Draco blinked at Harry for a second, then snorted and turned away. "Come on. We need to make sure that the defenses around the house are sufficiently down."

Harry only nodded as he followed Draco, but he didn't think it likely they would have a battle on their hands, considering the effort he and Draco had had to use to get past the wards and the dark dogs and the other nasty surprised Ernhardt had left around Cuthbert's Corner in the first place. Draco wanted to get out of here, though, and Harry couldn't really blame him.

They Apparated at the edge of the forest, and reappeared high on a stony cliff, above a crashing sea and under a driving rain that made Harry turn, instinctively seeking out the house with his eyes although he knew it was hard to spot from here. The rain curled under his cloak collar and soaked the front of his face, and he sneezed and spluttered as water went into his mouth and ears.

"Cold?" Draco cast a Warming Charm on him, and then an Impervious Charm above them both, before he began to climb. "Sometimes you forget that you're a wizard."

Harry chose not to answer that, and to ascend in dignity. Yes, it was true he had grown up with Muggles and his first instinct was to hide his face from rain instead of cast a spell. He liked to think he would be better off than Draco if they suddenly found themselves in some wild and remote place where magic didn't work.

Or in the middle of a Muggle flat, for that matter. Draco had stared at most of the appliances in Harry's small hidden flat, the one time Harry had brought him there, as if he didn't know what they were.

Harry sighed as he recalled the flat. He wished they could have gone back there in order to hide from the people hunting them. They would be back in familiar surroundings, at least for him, and Muggle places often exposed a wizard's hidden weakness. Most of the Aurors would be barely able to operate there, unless they happened to send a group that was entirely composed of Muggleborns.

"You don't really think we should go to Cuthbert's Corner?"

Harry caught Draco's eye and forced himself to stretch his mouth in a smile. They had argued for what felt like a week after Jenkins's owl advising them to go to Cuthbert's Corner arrived, although it was only a single afternoon. A _solid _afternoon, though, filled with the silent stink of the row they weren't having.

"I think we should," Harry forced himself to say, with a little shrug. "We don't have many other options. I thought of my flat," and he ignored Draco's curled lip, because he would only get angry if he thought about Draco's refusal to be in a Muggle place right now, "but they must know that it exists, if they've gone through our files. I'm surprised they didn't think to look in the Demlan Pack for us, actually. They probably have the names of your friends on file, too."

Draco nodded, already beginning the climb up the steep part of the cliff that would take them to Cuthbert's Corner. "But they couldn't move against a pack they've given permission to exist without causing a political incident. At the very least, they'd have to negotiate with them to come onto their territory, and we would have heard about that in time. My guess is that they knew where we were, but didn't want to pursue us until we moved." He paused and glanced at Harry, his hands already arranged above him on the rain-slick stone. "And they might come now. Are you going to follow me?"

Harry grimaced and did as Draco advised. He didn't know what could be done to cure the anger that boiled and bubbled between them, except to fight about it. But they couldn't afford a fight right now, either, couldn't afford the feelings that it would bring up.

They hadn't talked about Elder, how he had died or how Harry had tried to save him from the first method that Draco had chosen to dispatch him. They hadn't spent enough time discussing Draco's parents in any context except one of pure strategy. Harry knew they needed to. But they needed to be _reasonable _about it.

Right now, neither he nor Draco could act that way.

"Home sweet home," Draco muttered as he stepped up and fixed his eyes on what looked like a patch of rock and darkness until you looked more closely.

Harry grimaced as he climbed up beside Draco, his skin crawling and his palms flinching back from contact with the cliff lip near the front door. He hated this place. Memories of rotting hippogriffs would invade his mind, and cellars with skeletons and blood groves, and—

He shook himself back to reality before Draco could do it for him, and jerked his head up at the house. "Do you think we've disabled enough of the defenses to approach it without worrying about the dark dogs, or not?"

"Only one way to find out," Draco said, and moved forwards with a lowered head and lifted wand.

_And he calls me reckless. _Harry rolled his eyes and followed. He couldn't blame Draco if he thought about it, because the strain they were under was affecting both of them. Harry just tended to handle it with irritation, and Draco with action. Harry came up close behind him and squeezed his shoulder as they walked.

Draco twitched, but turned his face towards Harry and nodded a little.

No dark dogs, arguably the most dangerous part of the house's defenses before this, assaulted them. Harry let his shoulders fall. The trips they had made over the last week to change the wards and disarm the traps and spells Ernhardt had left must have worked to clear the traces of any Dark magic.

Draco touched his shoulder as they moved up to the threshold. "You realize that we're going to have to use Dark magic to set up our own wards?"

Harry swallowed and nodded. He had used Dark magic during his time as an Auror and barely hesitated with it anymore, at least when it was to save someone else's life or protect his own. He had never used for anything else, only disarmed it.

But it made sense that they would have to become Dark wizards, as the Ministry had already accused them of being, in order to protect themselves. He nodded again and moved up behind Draco.

"What are the good spells for it?" Harry added. "I never tried to set up wards before that would hurt someone instead of hold them away."

* * *

Draco considered Harry meaningly from the corner of his eye. Harry stood quietly beside him, though, and even if his breathing had quickened, he seemed poised to do what he had to do now. He smiled when he caught Draco's eye.

_Good. _Draco hadn't enjoyed the feeling that they were growing apart despite all that had happened to connect them. The frantic planning and exchange of ideas and false letters and false identities they had come up with, even their work together to disarm the old wards on Cuthbert's Corner, had seemed like he was spending time with a cooperative stranger, not a partner.

_When was the last time we had an hour to ourselves, an hour that we didn't spend planning how to hunt down enemies? _Draco thought, shaking his head. _It's no wonder that we're snapping at each other, or following each other dumbly like master and hound, when we have no other relationship at all right now._

He took Harry's hand, rubbing along the back instead of answering. He felt Harry relax, and he leaned against Draco's shoulder for a second instead of demanding an answer to his question, the way he would have a few days ago.

"I think the best Dark ward is more a defensive than an offensive one," Draco said calmly. "It's what it does to someone's mind that makes it illegal." He flicked his wand twice to the side, slowly, so Harry could spot the distinctive turn of the wrist that made the spell work. "_Mens obscuratio!_"

The darkness around them trembled, and then a slow question mark of heavy smoke began to grow in front of Draco. He dismissed from his mind the way it resembled some of the magic they had seen when they were hunting Ernhardt, and instead watched as it twitched and assumed the form he had wanted it to. A small gargoyle crouched there, tail whipping and ears cocked forwards as it watched him.

"Defend the left corner of the house," Draco said, gesturing up at the nearest part of the roof, and watched the tiny thing blaze away. He turned and looked at Harry. "That's it. You can make as many of these guardians as you like, and they won't interfere with each other unless you tell them both to guard the same thing. But it does mean that you have to create a lot of them to cover the entire property."

Harry's mouth was gentler than Draco had seen it in a long time. He nodded. "I can do that," he said, and whispered the spell himself, with a movement of his wrist that was a trifle off. Draco took his hand and showed him how to make it. Harry shivered, but Draco didn't think it was with the power of the Dark magic running through him.

The little creature appeared, a black stag. Draco thought he could see shimmering silver antlers for a moment before Harry told it to guard the right corner of the roof and it left. He relaxed. Harry had to be feeling better, and not too apprehensive about this spell, if he could give the guardian the form of his Patronus.

They worked in silence for a long time, other than the soft murmur of the spell and the instructions to the creatures that formed out of the air. When the house was clustered with their hovering forms, and so were most of the cliff walls down to the sea and the road along the top of the cliffs they had used to come in once before, Draco took Harry's hand and tugged him towards the house.

"We should go in and rest," he said. "I think we need it." He put his other hand on Harry's hip and rubbed in a significant circle. "And I think we need other things, too, even more than that."

Harry tilted his head back and rested it against Draco's shoulder, sighing. "Yeah," he said. A pause, and then he asked, "What exactly does this spell do to someone who comes in contact with the wards?"

Draco let his chin rest on Harry's hair, silently exulting. _He didn't ask until then. He trusts me enough to use Dark magic that he doesn't know the effect of, just because I told him it would be a good idea._

He tugged Harry towards the house faster, as he answered, "It darkens the mind of anyone who touches one of the guardians, and they'll make sure that they touch anyone trying to walk or climb or fly into their designated area. He'll stand there trapped in nightmares until we rescue him."

"I _like _it." Harry's smile was savage. "There are people in the Ministry I'd like to give nightmares to."

Draco stopped him on the threshold and kissed him there, just because.

* * *

Harry tilted his head back and shut his eyes. One could wish for a house-elf and not have one, but then, he had got used to that over the years. Hermione wasn't a comfortable friend for people who couldn't do their own dishes, and clothes, and household cleaning charms.

So Harry had cast charms until his arms shook with exhaustion, on two rooms that were on the ground floor of Cuthbert's Corner, while Draco, who wasn't good at them, went around tapping on walls and casting spells that should identify anything harmful hiding in unwatched corners. Nothing appeared. Finally, they'd cleared out a bedroom and attached bathroom, and Harry was relaxing in a tub filled with heated water Draco had conjured.

The room still looked grimy and grey when Harry opened hazy eyes at the click of the door, but it was tiled, and there was a limitation to how much even dust and neglect could damage that. The mirror had cracked, but Harry had simply Vanished the glass. He wasn't addicted to looking at himself, anyway. And there were spiders everywhere, but Harry had banished them with his cleaning charms, grinning at the thought of the description he could write to Ron and how quickly Ron would burn the letter.

Draco knelt down beside the tub, and watched him, such a long and earnest look that Harry reached up to push his hand through Draco's hair. Draco shut his eyes and shivered, tilting his head towards Harry.

"You have no idea how much I want you," Harry whispered to him.

"Yes, I do," Draco said, opening his eyes. "Because I feel the same way."

"Really?" Harry smiled in spite of himself, and let his hands float out around him, his head falling back further. "Prove it."

He heard a few muttered charms, and a wince. Draco was as close to magical exhaustion as Harry was. The wards had taken a lot out of them. But Harry felt safe—well, as safe as he could with the Ministry hunting them and when they were staying in a house that had belonged to a murderer—and he knew Draco was there with him, between him and the door, where he always positioned himself unless Harry stopped him. There was nothing to prevent Harry from enjoying himself.

Draco's hands raked the shampoo deep into Harry's hair. Harry turned towards it without meaning to, but Draco pushed his head back into position and hushed him with a click of his tongue. Harry nodded. Draco only put his chin back into position and made the hushing noise again.

The water flowed around Harry, the heat renewed with a lazy wave of his wand. Draco's hands went deep and deeper, into parts of his scalp that Harry would have sworn didn't exist before this, or at least didn't have nerves. Sparks of pleasure raced through his body. He made a soft sound despite himself, not a distressed sound but one that urged Draco to _move_, and his neck rolled back until he thought he knew every chip on that part of the tub intimately.

"Quiet," Draco said, a noise so soft itself that it was hard to hear. Harry would have nodded again, but that would have meant moving against the force of Draco's hands. So he drifted, letting his compliance speak his compliance.

Draco took a long, deep breath. Harry wondered what was taking him so long. His hands had paused, and his arms were tense. Did he want some sort of signal from Harry after all? Was he wondering if Harry would welcome this, when they'd been snapping and sniping right before they got to the house?

Harry thought of something he could do that wouldn't mean moving his head and wasn't a word either, and opened his eyes. Draco started when Harry caught his gaze, and then looked at him in wonder. Harry lazily licked his lips and winked at Draco.

"You want…" Draco began.

Harry blinked once, and shut his eyes again. He had thought he had given Draco all Draco needed.

He had. Draco bent to kiss him, and although he was probably now grinding those chips in the tub into his elbows, still he maintained that tight hold on Harry, his tongue stroking Harry's own, parting his lips, filling his mouth with warmth. Harry moaned and leaned further back, wondering if there was a way he could drag Draco into the tub without hurting one or both of them.

Draco solved the problem by casting one more spell, although Harry had to imagine that by now, sharp claws were dragging across his magical core. He floated up and over into the tub in the next second, and his clothes were gone when he settled on top of Harry, which made Harry grin up at him.

"Comfortable _and _convenient," he whispered into Draco's mouth.

Draco hummed back, and they settled onto each other heavily enough to make some of the water overflow. Harry didn't care. Even Draco's weight felt good, even on his aching limbs and his half-compressed chest. He spread his arms wider and lapped at Draco's chin, and Draco bit his and wrapped his legs around Harry's waist.

They rubbed against each other, slow with the motion of the water, with their own languid exhaustion, with the pressure of the emotions that had built up in them over the last few weeks and now seemed to trickle out instead of rush through the crack in the dam. Harry lifted a hand, gasping with pleasure as he traced Draco's face. Draco's cheeks twitched under his touch, but he said nothing, his eyelids fluttering but staying closed.

_I'd nearly forgotten what he looked like. What anything looked like except that bloody parchment and the quill and the ink we were writing things down with. I should look more often. _Harry splayed his fingers out and slid them from Draco's forehead to his chin. Draco hissed encouragingly, and Harry did it again. _I should—He's beautiful—_

His thoughts became ragged along with the thrusts of his hips, and Draco finished above him with a shudder. Harry came a second later, and hugged Draco hard enough to make Draco growl at him. Draco turned his head and kissed Harry's shoulder, speaking for the first time since the charm that had let him levitate into the tub. But since his words were muffled against Harry's wet skin, it didn't really sink in. Harry raked his fingers through Draco's hair, touched the nape of his neck enough to make him raise his head, and whispered, "What?"

"I needed that," Draco said.

"We both did." Harry kissed him and fumbled for his wand, casting the charms to clean up the water, to dry them both off. Draco rolled his eyes when he felt the spell scrape across his skin—Harry knew that he didn't perform them with enough finesse for Draco—but since they hadn't found a scrap of cloth anywhere in Cuthbert's Corner, there were no fluffy towels waiting for them.

"But next time," Draco said, as he let Harry half-lift, half-lever him out of the tub, "I want to do it in a bed."

Harry smiled at him. "Yes, we should." He remembered the moment when he had hesitated between doors, right after they had come inside, wondering whether he should choose a single room or separate ones. Then Draco had opened the door to one and stepped inside and give him a single intense look that made him realize he was stupid to be wondering.

"Mmm." Draco's eyes were lidded, lazy. He tilted his head from side to side, stretching. "I needed that more than I realized."

"Yes, you did," Harry said, and touched his wand to his hair to dry a few last stubborn places. "Me, too."

"I like you in this mood," Draco said, grinning at him. "You agree with everything I say."

Harry tackled him to the floor in a sudden rush, determined to show him how far _that _went, but then both of them ended up on the floor without enough energy to continue things. Draco laughed into his shoulder, and Harry laughed back, and they made their way off the floor, and into the clean pyjamas they had managed to acquire in Diagon Alley, and so into bed.


	2. Bloody Letters

Thank you for all the reviews!

_Chapter Two—Bloody Letters_

"Fucking _bats_."

Harry wrinkled his nose and stepped back. The bones lying on the floor at his feet had been fluttering through the air in front of him only a few seconds earlier. Luckily, he and Draco had finally learned the spell that weakened the necromantic connections that bound them together, from Ernhardt's own notes, and they weren't hard to defeat now.

Draco nodded to him, stepped around him while kicking the bones apart, and strode ahead down the corridor. Harry sighed and followed him.

The more they explored Cuthbert's Corner, the more they found: hidden passages, hidden tunnels, a whole half-floor that existed like a balcony above the second one. Harry wondered why they hadn't found it the first time they were in the house, but of course, the last time they had been here, they had been looking for Dark magic and Ernhardt, or possibly the other way around. They'd had more people with them, but less time.

And some of the Dark magic they'd found here had taken hours to unravel, especially the wards Ernhardt had dropped in front of some of the doors.

So far, though, they'd found precious little for all the wards and hiding. Some notes in code that Draco thought he could decipher, a few grimoires so old they were falling apart—which made Harry wonder if Ernhardt had been older than he seemed, leaping from body to body—and cauldrons with dried potions crusted on the bottom. Draco had put those aside to analyze later. Harry was more than willing to let him. Potions would forever be tainted for him, almost more than necromancy.

Now they were investigating what Harry devoutly hoped was the last hidden place, a corridor that led off a short one with only two rooms on the ground floor. The wood in here was dark, stained with long splashes of what might be blood, but Harry found it hard to worry about them, honestly. At least this blood was _dry_. And he and Draco were only trying to make the house safe for them to live in today, not discover every one of Ernhardt's secrets.

Draco halted ahead of him. Harry stopped walking at once, one foot in the air, and then cautiously eased it back down. He swallowed, which made him wince, as he wondered if the sound had been too loud after all, but Draco didn't turn around and scold him for it. Draco was turning in slow circles instead, head uplifted to the ceiling.

"Something above us?" Harry asked, mouthing it, waiting until Draco had turned back towards him and would be able to catch the movement of his lips.

Draco shook his head impatiently. Harry stayed still. He didn't know what Draco had sensed, but they had saved each other's lives multiple times. Lovers and partners and comrades in arms. He could trust Draco enough to conquer his impatience. If Draco thought it was better to keep still right now, then it was.

Draco held his wand out in front of him, and murmured something that Harry couldn't catch. The spell was enough to make the tip of the wand flare with light far stronger than a _Lumos, _though, and Harry resisted the impulse to blink and lift his hand to shield his eyes. It might be important to stand still for a while.

"You can move." Draco arched his neck back and lifted his wand closer to the ceiling. "I saw something I want to read."

Harry glanced up, then stared. There were what he had thought were more random patches of dried blood on the ceiling, but closer inspection showed him the handwriting that curved and raced through the blood, delicate letters mingled with the sort of symbols—open eyes and rising suns—that dotted the code on the parchments they had found. Ernhardt's writing, he assumed. He moved back and studied the blood on the walls beside him. Yes, there was writing there, too.

And he never would have noticed if not for Draco. Draco was the one who could interpret the code, of course, but also the one who had taken the time to notice this in the first place. Harry smiled at him, knowing that he probably looked half-idiotic in his frank adoration, but not caring. It wasn't like anyone else was there to make fun of him.

Draco caught his eyes, and frowned. "What?"

Harry shook his head a little. "I just wouldn't have noticed," he said. "How did you?"

"I've seen the letters on the walls for a while." Draco traced his wand down, so Harry lost sight of the writing on the ceiling but could see it more clearly in the blood on the walls. There was what looked like letters that said _khe_… and then trailed off into another symbol of a rising sun. "But parts of it were missing. There would be no reason for Ernhardt to leave a message like this, either for himself or as part of the house's defenses, and then break it. But it makes sense now. The missing part is above us." He tilted his head back to study the ceiling again, looking grimly satisfied.

"Is there anything I can do?" Harry asked. He wasn't up to interpreting the code, he knew that much.

Draco started to shake his head, then paused. "Copy some of the letters and symbols on the walls down on a parchment," he ordered. "I was keeping track of what I could—reading as we went along. But now I have to look at what's up here, and if we keep going back and forth like this, I'll miss something. It'll be easier with another copy that I can take back and study with me."

Harry nodded and took parchment and a quill out of his robe pocket. It was one of the things he hadn't thought they'd need in Cuthbert's Corner, except to send owls, but luckily they had found a large supply in the drawer of a desk. Ernhardt had to have some around to construct the message in the first place, after all.

* * *

Draco walked the corridor again, making sure that he hadn't missed any of the symbols scrawled on the ceiling. Or in the corners. Or arrayed around each other in five-pointed stars, which was something he hadn't noticed the first time and made him misread the message in two parts of the ceiling at least twice.

Then he turned back around and stared at Harry, who was crouched down by a dark red string of letters on the bottom of the wall, his head bowed and his hand moving in a frenzy.

"We'll still be able to interpret them if you write more slowly," Draco said. He was afraid that his voice came out snappishly, but he didn't want to miss something because Harry had jumped over it in his hurry.

Harry started and glanced at him. Draco thought he was about a centimeter away from getting a wand up his nose when Harry nodded and turned back to the writing. "Sorry," he mumbled.

Draco sighed and came up behind him to put a hand on his shoulder, massaging gently along Harry's collarbone. Harry closed his eyes and turned his head towards Draco, letting it droop so that his forehead rested on Draco's hand.

"I know," Draco whispered. "And it doesn't help that the house's message is spelling out trouble for us."

"That's what this says?" Harry looked at the writing without breaking contact with Draco. Draco had to admit he liked that. They'd been so jumpy for so long, and disagreed about most of the right things to do when staying with the werewolves—who liked Draco better, had no reason to trust Harry, and had nearly killed Harry when he owled his friends. "Does it promise Ernhardt can come back from the dead?"

Draco shook his head. "His native magic wasn't necromancy. I think that's why we've run into recent traps that have it, but none of the old wards. He wasn't here long enough to use it to really defend the house."

Harry nodded. "All right. But what's it say?" He snorted when Draco paused. "Come on. I know that you wouldn't have brought it up at all if you didn't intend to tell me what it said."

"It's meant to make us uncomfortable here," Draco said softly. "More and more, until we reach the point where we're jumping at shadows."

Harry nodded. "Or we're ready to kill each other?"

Draco jerked a little. "You didn't tell me you could read it," he said, looking at Harry's eyes, which were focused back on the letters that he copied down. He had to lean close to squint and make out whether a symbol was really an S or the K it looked like, Draco suspected.

"No, I can't," Harry said. "But I didn't know you could, either. You were telling me that you would need time to crack the code the parchments were written in."

Draco winced. "The code the parchments are written in is more difficult than this one," he said, and turned his head back towards the five-pointed star that lingered on the wall in the corner. "This one—it's meant to drive us mad, if we stay here."

Harry stopped writing for a second. Then he looked up, and his smile bent to the side in the crooked way that Draco loved. "So. Jenkins was wrong about wanting us to stay here, and I was wrong, and you were right."

Draco shook his head. "I was—I resented the notion of coming back to a house that belonged to a man who had tried to kill us," he admitted. "It had nothing to do with the traps I thought were here. Jenkins had a good idea, especially after she _Obliviated _herself to have no memory of the location. I want—I still want to be able to go back to Malfoy Manor, and claim it as my own. I was daydreaming, and I got upset at the nearest person who told me my daydreams were impossible."

Harry reached up and squeezed his hand. "Can you tell how long this trap will take to work? Will it delay working if we leave for a while?"

"I don't know that yet," Draco had to admit. "I'll need to spend a few days with the code and see how much more complicated the patterns are than the ones in those documents we're trying to translate."

"Then I propose an expedition," Harry said, copying down the last line on the wall beside him and standing up. "I think we should go to your parents' house and do what we can to them."

Draco blinked. "I told you my daydreams were impossible, remember."

Harry snorted. "Right, but we wanted to get some kind of revenge on them, right? Some sort of legacy for you. I know that nothing can probably make them take you back—you explained to me how that pure-blood shit works—but we can take something from the Manor that you should have inherited. Not to mention looking for evidence on how they got in contact with Elder."

Draco bowed his head. That was one thing he had thought of, but he had assumed it would have to come second to proving their innocence, and by the time they were in a position to do anything about it, they would also have their innocence and their jobs back. And reinstated Aurors couldn't go breaking into other people's manor houses.

"They might have changed the wards against me," he said. "It won't be as simple to walk in as last time."

Harry smiled. "I never said it would be simple," he murmured, putting his hand on Draco's shoulder. "But they also don't remember you, and that might mean they haven't remembered to take the exceptions for you out of the wards, either. Shall we?"

And Draco, his heart swelling until it seemed to fill his whole chest, could only nod.

* * *

Harry crouched in the bushes at the edge of the Malfoy Manor grounds and studied the house quietly. Draco knelt at his side, his hands clenched in front of him on his wand. He had cast the spell that had interacted with the wards to allow them this close without alerting anyone.

Harry put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He hadn't realized how much the spells woven around Cuthbert's Corner were affecting them until he was outside it. Now they could breathe, deep enough to actually feel their lungs expanding and the air doing them good, and now Draco was quivering with the nervous tension Harry would have expected him to feel as they neared the house of the parents who had disowned him.

"It's all right," Harry whispered into his ear, and moved a step away, his wand trailing along the air. Draco tensed, but Harry nodded to him, and he calmed down with a little huff, trusting Harry not to use magic that would bring his parents down on top of them right at those parents' very gates.

Harry continued walking, the faint, wavering ribbon of magic growing behind him, blue and sparkling, like a smaller version of the Milky Way. This was a passive spell, the most passive defensive magic he knew, and while it curled up and down slowly, outlining the wards and telling Harry where the main ones were, it shouldn't interact with them.

He turned around when he reached the end of the clump of bushes and came slowly back, studying the spell. Blue sparkles had settled into the shape of the wards, covering them like snowfall. Harry smiled grimly. Yes, the wards had thickened and strengthened, and he didn't think they were blood-based anymore, although he would have to confirm that with Draco. They looked like something else instead, something Harry had seen recently.

"No more exceptions for someone of their blood?" he murmured under his breath to Draco as he rejoined him.

Draco shook his head. His eyes were focused ahead, and when Harry looked, he saw a house-elf in the side gardens, its head twitching as it trimmed back a rosebush. Harry wondered if it was the sight of the elf in general that bothered Draco, or if he had known this elf. It could be either, really.

"Yeah, well, I should have thought of that," Harry said lightly. "They probably did it before they forgot about you." He raised another gentle shield that would keep them from the creature's sight, although it didn't seem that the elf was particularly looking for intruders. That was what wards were for. The elf hopped further into the gardens, waving a hand to gather up all the leaves and clippings that had fallen on the ground and pack them into what looked like a satchel behind it. Harry turned back to Draco. "I think blood exceptions are all gone from the wards, but there might be some that are unique to the Malfoy line that I've missed. Come and see."

Draco rose to his feet like someone in a dream. Harry rubbed his shoulder. Draco turned abruptly and caught up his hand, and Harry froze, wondering if touching Draco at the moment was something his partner would resent.

Instead, Draco kissed Harry's hand above the wrist, his eyes so intense that Harry wanted to flinch. "Thank you," Draco whispered. "For standing by me. For being here."

Harry would have eased the words off with a joke on an ordinary day, but this wasn't an ordinary day. So he leaned forwards and kissed Draco, and felt Draco shudder a little beneath his lips.

"You're welcome," Harry whispered, and stepped back. "Come on, let's go."

* * *

Draco walked along Harry's blue line, studying the cracks and brighter areas where the spell indicated weaknesses in the wards. He looked as hard as he could for certain cracks, and listened to the tingling and spinning of the wards as he moved his hand in and out.

In the end, he had to shake his head. "All the blood exceptions are gone," he said. "The wards recognize my parents based on their having lived here for years." He smiled and turned back to Harry, who studied him as one might a dangerous animal, never looking away from the smile. Draco shuddered a little and faced the wards again. "I'm sure they did that on purpose. I haven't lived here for seven years, since I became an Auror. The house would reject any claim I did make to establish residency."

Harry straightened up, his eyes brightening. Draco blinked as he took his wand from his pocket. He was often surprised by the spells that Harry knew—not as many Dark ones as Draco, of course, but things he had picked up in odd pockets and corners of Auror study.

"Residency is an interesting concept," Harry said thoughtfully, swirling his wand back and forth. Brief gleams of magic came to life, tracing the motion of his hand, but died down again before Draco could open his mouth to comment. "No, the house wouldn't recognize you because you haven't lived here, but we leave memories behind in the stone—and the ones that you left because you lived here as a child wouldn't simply disappear." He turned to face Draco. "What was the room you loved the most when you were a kid?"

Draco hesitated, looking for the traps in the question. "Loved the most? Or spent the most time in?"

Harry snorted. "Right. I forgot they might be different. Spent the most time in, then. The length of time is the appropriate thing."

Draco tilted his head back to consider the side of the Manor. It looked like unimpressive, aging stone from this side, but he knew, none better, how that could come alive in grey light if someone tried to intrude. He pointed up at a single gleaming window high in the side. "You can't see it very well from here, but there. That library."

"Because it had the most books in it?" Harry stepped back and fixed his eyes on the window. Draco wondered idly what he would do. The library window was still behind the wards, so Harry would have to figure out a way to pierce them first.

"No, because it had the most Dark Arts books in it," Draco mumbled. His tongue felt thick, and once again it was hard to look at Harry. "I wanted—I thought it would be brilliant if I went to Hogwarts knowing how to curse my enemies."

Harry only nodded, as though that neither surprised nor hurt him, and then reached out a hand. It wasn't until he snapped his fingers that Draco realized what he wanted. He rested his hand gingerly in Harry's. Harry's fingers immediately closed around his wrist and tilted it until Draco's hand was palm up.

"All right," Harry whispered. "I've seen this work, but only when there were weaker wards, so if something hurts, tell me right away, okay? Then we'll know to stop." He laid his wand in the center of Draco's palm.

"What are you going to do?" Draco whispered back.

Harry opened his eyes and smiled at him. "Wards are meant to keep things out," he said, tracing his wand in a star-shaped pattern. Draco forced himself not to think of the star-shaped patterns of writing on the ceilings of Cuthbert's Corner. There were other things it could mean. "Everyone knows that. What they _don't _often think about is that they're meant to keep harmful things out. They can't be tighter than that, unless they're on trunks full of treasure and other rooms or objects where nothing inside needs to breathe. Otherwise, they would keep out air and light, too."

The star-shaped pattern in Draco's palm was tingling. He blinked at it, and then at Harry. "What are you doing?"

"This particular spell allows the love you felt for that room to pass the wards," Harry said, tilting his head back to study the window again. "The sympathy you built up in it, the way the stones remember you. Wards don't keep that out. Most of the time, there would be no need to. The members of the family who love and honor the house are the ones who should have the ability to cross the boundaries, after all."

Draco blinked again. He had never heard of a spell like that, but then, he hadn't studied very much of the Lighter branches of magic, either. He had thought there was no way they could be more powerful than the Dark Arts. It seemed he had been wrong. "Wouldn't my parents have thought of that? I mean, no offense, Harry, but they are more learned than you are."

Harry snorted a little. "I doubt they're thinking in terms of love much at any time, but especially when they've rejected you."

Draco winced in spite of himself, but Harry smiled reassuringly back at him, squeezed his hand, and faced the window of the library again. "If I'm right, then the connection you still share with the room will pull you through the wards," he told Draco quietly. "It'll take a few minutes to work, but once you're through, you're through, and the wards can't spot you. The only danger is if an elf comes along and sees you in the time before the spell takes effect."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "And what about you? How are you going to get through them?"

Harry half-smiled. "I thought I might play distraction again, the way I did the last time."

Draco winced, remembering their last visit, which had ended up with his mother wounded from the explosion of a magical necklace she was wearing—which had really been Draco's fault, although his parents hadn't known that at the time—and shook his head. "They could still remember you even if they have no idea who I am. They won't let you in."

"I wasn't planning on having them let me in," Harry said calmly. "I was thinking in terms of a distraction to give you a chance to search for what you want."

Draco hesitated again. Harry reached out and squeezed his hand. "I won't let them catch me. And I know spells that aren't Dark Arts and which they won't have defended against, the way I just showed you. Trust me?"

With that plea filling his mind, Draco had to nod. "But I don't want you putting yourself in unnecessary danger," he told Harry. "If they start hitting you with Dark Arts that you can't counter, Apparate out of here."

"Where are the Dark Arts I can't counter?" Harry asked in innocence, and then snorted softly and shoved at Draco when he glared. "Go on. I can handle this."

_Isn't part of what we share supposed to be about trust?_

Given that, Draco turned slowly away from Harry and walked up to the limit of the wards, waiting. A few minutes later, the spell engaged and tugged him smoothly up and up, by his hands, and through the window as if it were made of silk draperies. Draco landed in the middle of the library and looked around.

The Dark Arts texts he had spent so much time studying here were surely part of his inheritance, surely owed. He would begin taking them first, as well as looking for any information he could find on when and how his parents had hired Elder.

As he reached for the first book, the wards shook with a hollow _booming _noise. Draco's teeth felt as though someone had reached out and shaken his skull with all of them in it.

Draco swallowed a little. So now he reckoned he knew what Harry's distraction was.

* * *

Harry grinned as he watched house-elves vanish from the Manor's gardens. They would go in to secure their own safety and tell the family, though he didn't think it would be needed, not if the elder Malfoys were as linked to the wards as Draco said they were.

Harry wondered for a minute if he should care that these people had once been Draco's parents, loved and sacrificed for him.

And then Harry sneered and shrugged. Why should he? _They_ hadn't.

And he lashed out with another spell, and the wards shook again.


	3. Pounding on the Wards

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Three—Pounding on the Wards_

Draco found it unexpectedly easy to ignore the great blows that shuddered through both wards and Manor house as Harry went to work on them. When he had left here seven years ago, he had severed the connection to the wards, and his parents had completed the process with their forgetting of him. This was the place he should have inherited, but it wasn't _his _anymore.

_Does that mean my name shouldn't be Malfoy anymore?_

Draco firmed his jaw. No, he wouldn't think about that right now. He had as much right to the name of Malfoy as his parents did. More, since he hadn't decided that exiling his own blood from the family was the right thing to do. He would keep pressing forwards, for now, and taking the things he still wanted.

He shrunk several Dark Arts books and dropped them into his pockets. Then he looked around the library for any sign of the artifacts that his parents had once kept here—nothing particularly valuable, but useful.

He didn't see them, but he did see something else, something that made him narrow his eyes and move towards the far shelves. He winced reflexively as the walls and floors jumped around him, but that was easier to get past when he didn't brace for it. A quick breath, and it was already finished.

Draco held up his hand and traced the complex pattern of silver and gleaming wards that covered the shelves. From a distance, he could have mistaken them for some of the silver instruments he had once seen in Dumbledore's office, when called up there for a "talk" during his sixth year. Dumbledore had, Draco knew with hindsight, realized exactly what he was doing and wanted to give him an early chance to surrender. But Draco had walked away convinced he had managed to fool the Headmaster.

He shook his head to dismiss the memories and studied the complex chain of wards again. They were small, but formed a grid, more angular than a spiderweb, tracing over the entire front space of the shelves. He had no idea what they were at first, but as he looked more and more closely at them, he began to suspect.

_Hiding wards. _His father had mentioned them once, during a casual conversation that was meant to test Draco's Dark Arts knowledge before he returned to Hogwarts for his fifth year. He hadn't shown Draco how to cast them, merely talked about what they looked like and what they were useful for: concealing something behind them at any cost.

No amount of force would break them.

Draco smiled a little grimly and took his wand out. Along with mentioning their purpose, his father had also hinted at how to disarm them. Figuring out the various cryptic things he said was part of Draco's test. He had done it at once, desperate to see the faint expression of pride gleam like winter sunlight on his father's face.

He could have mourned for the child he had been, the child who had not only thought that was a great treasure but had assumed his father would continue to value him forever.

But Draco preferred to avenge that boy instead.

He waited until the next blow was past, so that the sounds and jarring effects of the room shuddering couldn't distract him. Then he aimed his wand at the wards and cast the Dark spell that wouldn't break them. Instead, it would tell them that a wizard with a soul akin to the soul of the one who had cast them stood in front of them.

"_Carnificina_."

The spell did nothing but form the slight image of a gallows in front of him, a puff of silvery mist that dissipated in the next instant. It couldn't do more than that unless paired with stronger words that would make it an incantation instead of a greeting sign.

But the hiding wards softened and thinned as the image did, and Draco stepped up to them and let his hand glide through. The wards were hiding Dark Arts books, in this instance. If they had been hiding something else, Draco would have had to prove that he had the soul of someone who would value it, not misuse it.

That spell had merely shown that he _would _commit torture if he had to. It was Dark enough to allow him access.

What he drew out wasn't one of the usual tomes he remembered from his childhood, though, or even a grimoire that might have appeared during the Dark Lord's occupation of the house. Instead, it was a staid blue volume with a golden design on the front. Draco recognized it as a natural philosophy book—rather like the ones that Newt Scamander had made famous, in sanitized form.

Draco frowned as he flipped through the book. There was no marking he could find, and no sign that one page had been looked at more often than the others. Nor was there any sign that the writing might be a code, the book a glamour of disguise.

Draco shook his head and shrank the book to put it in his pocket along with the others. It wasn't for him to linger and decipher it here. Harry could only keep up the barrage on the wards so long. Draco had to move on and find out what evidence he could of Elder's hiring.

And see if there was anything else he wanted. He had got used to living without Malfoy money; what he wanted now was artifacts.

* * *

"Your superiors at the Ministry would be interested in knowing what we do about you."

Harry smiled and didn't take his eyes off the wards on the left side of the house that he'd been hitting with spells for the last ten minutes. There was no reason he had to. The Malfoys were still behind the wards. They would have to aim either over them to hit him, which would give him time to counter, or lower them, and then they would be as vulnerable to Harry's wand as he was to theirs. "I'm sure they would," he replied, and let go with another Blasting Curse that pounded down like heavy fists.

Narcissa Malfoy stepped forwards. She had come out with her husband, but he stayed back. She was the one who gave him a slight bow. "Why have you returned?" she asked.

Harry studied her. She had a long black scar twining around her throat, the result of that magical necklace's explosion, but she looked better off than he would have thought she was. Then again, pure-bloods like the Malfoys would have money that could take care of unsightly marks.

Harry decided that he might as well test her memory of his last visit, as long as he kept his eye on Lucius's wand. "What do you remember of that visit?" he asked, swirling his wand back and forth as though he might be silly enough to try an attack on them. "My motivations?"

Narcissa frowned and cast a glance back at Lucius. Lucius lifted his eyebrows. Harry saw a slight twitch of his chin that would probably be a headshake in normal people.

Harry felt a sudden, fierce burst of pride and gratitude that Draco had escaped from them, and with his heart intact, along with the ability to actually _express _emotions, instead of walling them all up the way his parents did.

Narcissa faced him again and made a slight, graceful gesture with one hand. "We do not know what you wanted. We did not then. We do not now."

Harry smiled and came a pace forwards. "Don't you? We talked about it. I took something from you, something you blamed me for. You wanted it back so much that you allowed me inside the wards on a promise not to harm me while I was there. You really _don't _remember, do you?" He laughed. "Would you believe I was so good at Memory Charms?"

They didn't, of course, but the ritual they had performed left them drowning in uncertainty either way. They stared at him, and finally Lucius took over the conversation, leaning in to say, "Will you tell us what it is?"

"You have nothing I want in return," Harry drawled. _Except something you already gave me. _But that line was reserved for an emergency, like them suddenly noticing that someone had gone into the house.

"We might," Lucius said. "The Malfoy name is not without influence."

Harry bit the inside of his cheek as though in consideration. "That's true," he said, long and slow. "But I don't think you have any influence with Genevieve Edelstein."

"There are influences that have nothing to do with money or names," Narcissa said. "We could bring some of them to bear."

"For my partner, too?" Harry asked, because he was curious to see their reaction. The papers hadn't been sparing with their naming of names. Harry wondered if the ritual they had performed could stand up to a direct confrontation with the fact that one of the "renegade Aurors" was named Malfoy.

"We know that the person with you is calling himself after our family," Lucius said, a touch impatiently. "That makes it harder."

"Of course it does," Harry said. "But in that case, I have no reason to give up the information I possess." He turned back to the wards.

"I did not say it was impossible, simply harder," Lucius said, and moved forwards a step to bring himself back into Harry's field of vision. "You will give up your assault on the wards if we intercede for you, as well as telling us what you were here for last time?"

Harry had to give Lucius some credit for making those two separate prices. He paused, pretending to concentrate, licking his lips and blinking a little. Not too much, or he would probably make them suspicious.

"I have to think it over," he muttered as though fighting to convince himself. "Of course I have to think it over."

Lucius smiled at him, but the smile was deep around the edges, and Narcissa touched her hand to the scar around her neck behind him, as though a corner of her memory contained the fact that Harry had been there when it happened. "Do not think too long," Lucius murmured, stepping back and bowing. "Or you may find that you have outlived our interest."

"Nice touch," Harry murmured, and then nodded hastily when Narcissa stared at him. "All right, all right. This isn't permanent, it can't be," he muttered, looking at his hands and around himself as though he was talking about his whole life on the run. "I can't survive like this for very long." It was a horrible lie, but the Malfoys would expect something as pathetic as this from him, so it didn't matter.

Lucius relaxed a little. "A good choice, Mr. Potter," he said with a sharp nod. "You will give us your information first, of course."

"I've already stopped the assault on the wards," Harry said. "That means half of my side of the bargain is done." He smiled at Lucius. "Wouldn't want to give you incentive to hang onto your influence forever. Now, I want you to give me names of people in the Ministry you're going to contact about this."

Lucius and Narcissa bent their heads together, and the murmur of their voices would probably have been inaudible even without the wards. Harry didn't really care, but he waited with an alert expression, and hoped they couldn't see that his hands were slippery on his wand.

_Come on, Draco, find what you want and get out of there._

"I will contact Montgomery," Lucius said, turning towards him. "A master of hidden pressures, of secrets that others do not know. He will know what to do."

Harry felt a prickle race up his spine. _Montgomery. Right. The name Jenkins gave us in her letter._

"That will do," he said, keeping his face calm and demure and trying to look as though he knew more than he really did. He watched Lucius turn back towards the house, thought of the way that he might spot Draco if he entered and Draco wasn't warned, and cleared his throat. Lucius turned back towards him, his robes snapping around him as dramatically as Snape's ever had.

"Yes?" Lucius asked. "I was under the impression that you were anxious to have your name cleared."

"I want to know," Harry said, and lowered his voice, moving closer to the wards, glancing over his shoulder. Narcissa leaned towards him in response, though Lucius maintained his distance. Harry fought to keep from grinning in relief and triumph. _Good_. "I want to know what you've got following me, too."

Narcissa exchanged a glance with her husband, her lips moving slightly. Lucius twitched his head in a slight shake. Harry wondered for a moment why it was so easy to read them, and then shrugged. He had probably learned something about the signals they used in watching Draco, who had been trained in the same school.

"We have nothing following you," Lucius said. "How could we? We had no idea that you would come back or where you were before now."

"But you have influences that have nothing to do with money or names," Harry said, deliberately echoing what Narcissa had said a few minutes before. He folded his arms. "How do I know that you didn't contact someone to come and hunt me down? I _know _that I've heard sniffing behind me. And I saw a shadow whisk away behind me when I started banging on your wards."

Narcissa raised a hand and caressed the scar around her throat, but dropped it when she saw Harry looking. "We did not hire anything," she said, a trifle stiffly. "We did not cause anything to happen to you."

"But you might have caused something to track me," Harry said. "That's what I want to know about. Did you hint to a friend that you might like to have me taken care of? Someone who _could _hire out a creature to follow me?"

Narcissa turned fully to face her husband this time. Harry couldn't see her expression, and didn't dare to lean around her so that he could. Lucius bowed his head as though he had to listen to Narcissa's words from a closer distance than usual, but ended up twitching his chin in that subtle shake again.

"We have no knowledge of what might have been following you," Narcissa said, turning back to Harry. "Accept the help that we have _already _offered, and do not try to change the bargain at this point."

"All right," Harry said, but as Lucius turned back to face the Manor again, he thrust his wand into the air and released a shining stream of red sparks.

Lucius turned back towards him at once, his hand resting on the shaft of his wand. Harry gave him a faint smile and shook his head. "Did you think I came alone?" he asked, lying as brazenly as he had about the creature supposedly tracking him. "I have some friends watching at a distance. Red sparks mean I'm all right and that I succeeded in making a bargain with you instead of getting killed."

Narcissa leaned forwards with her hand on her throat again. "If you desire to get killed, then we can oblige you," she hissed.

_Open threats? Really? _Harry wondered if he was stupid for finding that so unsubtle. He'd spent too much time hanging out with Draco, that was certain. He smiled at her a little and said, "I don't desire it. Don't trouble yourself."

Narcissa turned her back to him and walked towards the Manor, her back perfectly straight and her strides so firm that Harry half-expected to see a house-elf appear behind her to turn the grass back to its perfectly trimmed self. But none did, and Harry watched her vanish into the Manor.

_Why does she keep touching that scar? I know she must have the memories of me from that time, at least. But you'd think someone who prided herself on her mask wouldn't allow herself such an obvious nervous gesture._

"You've spent enough time annoying my wife," Lucius said quietly. "Wait here, Mr. Potter." The weight of the tone was far more threat than Narcissa's words.

Harry just nodded back, and didn't move as he watched Lucius go into the Manor, too. He had done what he could to warn Draco without inadvertently giving away that someone else was there. He would have to hope that Draco had seen the sparks and would understand.

* * *

Draco began to move very fast once he caught sight of the rising, and then falling, fountain of red sparks through the nearest window.

His father's study had revealed nothing in the way of incriminating papers, and Draco had to admit that he had probably been foolish for hoping it would. His father wasn't the sort to leave them lying in plain sight, or even lying in plain sight encoded.

Draco had done what he could with Summoning and Searching charms, but too many cabinets were locked, and too many books were filled with thick pages in his father's handwriting. He had searched for a few key terms on pages, but that had made every book in the room glow, and Draco had had to stop with a grimace. It seemed that the kind of authors his father read all favored the terms "plan," "family," "forgetting," and "ritual."

Then had come his mother's study, but there was little to nothing in it. That wasn't the way Draco remembered it, and he had spent more time than he should have hunting among the plain wooden tables and plain green walls.

He _did _find a round, discolored spot near one of the shelves, and he'd bent down to examine it when he saw Harry's fountain of sparks.

He straightened up with a curse and a shake of his head, and wheeled away from the spot to face the door. No evidence on when they had hired Elder, so far, or how. But they might have destroyed those papers along with everything else relating to him when they went through the ritual to forget him. Draco knew from his scholarship that most of the time, any documents that related to the child or sibling to be forgotten went into the fire.

He was going to run through the study door and up to the library where he had come in, and wait for Harry to retrieve him through the wards. He _was. _He didn't want Harry to think his warning had gone for nothing.

But for some reason, Draco turned around and wheeled back to that spot on the wall, staring intently at it.

There was _something _about it that he wanted to remember, or something that he hoped would trigger a memory. He stood there, his fingers cutting into his arms as he stared, wishing he had the time to drop his memory of the spot into a Pensieve and compare it with older memories of the room. Well, and that he had a Pensieve. That would help, too.

Something, something that reminded him of another room with shelves all around him and something round on the wall…

And then Draco reeled back, and cursed softly in shock, despite the elves who might hear him. _Fuck. _The spot hung exactly where there had been an enchanted mirror, ornamented with snakes, in his parents' main library.

He had shattered that mirror, the last time they were here. And in response, the necklace his mother wore around her neck, a thick band of coiled silver that Draco had never seen before he was exiled, had shattered, and Narcissa had fallen to her knees screaming. Harry had described the way Lucius stared at him, with hatred, and the blood flowing down Narcissa's throat in consequence. His parents had thought Harry was responsible for it. Only an oath they had sworn to let Harry go unscathed protected him.

It looked as though a similar mirror had hung here, at one point.

Draco reached out and traced a hand up and over the circle on the wall, his heart pounding away the seconds in his ears, knowing that he was being stupid, but wanting, _needing, _to know what had happened here. His hand rose and fell and traced the circle, searching for some tingle of magic.

Then he saw it, something small and shiny and embedded in the wall at the very edge of the dull circle.

Draco Summoned it with a non-verbal incantation and turned to leave. He could hear footsteps moving through the corridors beneath him, too heavy and self-assured to be those of house-elves.

A shadow flickered past the door of the library.

Draco hissed beneath his breath and flattened himself to the wall. He didn't think they had seen him, and there was a good chance that the spell they had used to forget about him wouldn't let them really focus on him even if they did. But he didn't want to take the chance that they would strike first at an unwanted intruder in their home and ask questions later.

His mother's voice came from what was perhaps a meter away. "And we promised that we would pay him back. We let him leave unharmed?"

"Of course we don't," said Lucius's voice, soft, precise. "Leave it to me to choose the means of our vengeance."

Draco swallowed. He heard his father's footsteps move towards the door, and he added, as he began to step into the study, "I need to retrieve the shards you hid. That would be the most effective way to do it, and the most poetic."

Draco sneered as he cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, far calmer than he had expected to be in his father's immediate presence. Lucius had not always called it "poetic," but even after the war, he seemed incapable of learning the lessons Draco had, that practicality was more important than the effect of something.

Lucius walked over to the far wall beneath the window and bent down. Draco could see him tracing his wand in circles in the air, and a section of the cool green wall began to swing out, probably revealing a hidden cupboard.

But Draco didn't want to wait any longer. The window was the best exit, and it meant he would have to past his father. But he had to warn Harry, too. They hadn't given up on taking revenge on Harry for, as they saw it, hurting Narcissa the last time he was here, and they wanted that more than they wanted whatever Harry had promised them—probably information to repair the holes the ritual would have left in their memories. Draco had no reason to stay here.

He moved silently forwards until Lucius straightened up. He had cast a Shielding Charm on his hands, Draco noticed, and in the center of his palms lay bright, jagged shards. They glinted like the mirror glass Draco suspected they were.

And Draco had come far enough that he could begin to move faster now. He did so, springing. Lucius turned, frowning, but the double barrier of the ritual he had performed and the Disillusionment Charm kept him, Draco thought, from seeing anything.

Then Draco cast his own Shielding Charms on his body and jumped through the window.

He heard the glass break around him, flying apart without cutting him. He heard Lucius's startled shout. He twisted in midair and began to cast the Cushioning Charms that would make him bounce on the grass instead of hit it.

Then he felt the curse that hit him in the back from Lucius's wand, and the pain that spread all over his shoulders in seconds, in a web of blazing fire.


	4. Escaping a Mansion

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Four—Escaping a Mansion_

Harry saw the window crack down the middle, saw the miserable jump that Draco had made through it become a headlong fall as Lucius's curse struck him.

He saw that, and nothing more, because _Draco was falling_.

Harry whipped a hand back, and in the hand was his wand, and in his wand was enough power to break the Malfoy wards apart, if he had unleashed it all at once before. He hadn't, because he thought that he didn't want Narcissa and Lucius (and any enemies they might contact) to find out everything he could do. But he did now, and the rage and the magic flew together, twin battering rams as he roared out, "_Reducto! REDUCTO!_"

The spells landed with a sound that Harry knew he would hear in his dreams almost as often as the splintering of that window glass, because this was the splintering of magic. Down and down and through and over the wards cracked, and Harry hit them with another Blasting Curse, and then a single, pure wave of raw power that he didn't remember casting the spell for. Maybe he hadn't. There was nothing compared to the agony of seeing Draco fall.

The wards in front of him weakened and moaned and fell apart in drifting pulses of power. Harry took a single long stride forwards, and he was on the Malfoy grounds.

Too late to cast a Cushioning Charm for Draco, of course, who had already landed on the hard ground, probably unconscious. But not too late to keep Lucius, who was leaning out the window and staring at the intruder, from doing something else that would harm him.

Harry lifted his wand again. The spell surged into his mouth, another of those Light magic spells like the one that could use love to pull someone through wards. One of those Light spells he wasn't precisely supposed to know, but he did, and he would _use it_. "_Insons!_"

The spell hit Lucius in a single wave of white-gold radiance, spreading out from Harry in the way he imagined sunshine would, if he was ever lucky enough to replace the sun. Lucius staggered back and disappeared from view with a cry. Harry couldn't pay attention to that. He had one person in the world he wanted to pay attention to right now, and he ran for him.

Draco was lying motionless when Harry scooped him up. He hastily cast a Lightening Charm, and even more hastily cast the diagnostic spells that would tell him if Draco had a broken limb or ribs or was in danger of dying immediately. It didn't seem so, which meant Harry could move him. He slung Draco over his shoulder and turned to run. His assault on the wards had only opened a hole in one very specific part of the defense system, it hadn't made it possible to Apparate off the Manor grounds.

A sharp word startled him. He glanced up and saw Narcissa Malfoy leaning out of the window that Lucius had been at, her hand on the thick scar around her neck again. She had a look in her eyes that Harry thought was meant to be threatening, but at the moment, all he really cared about was that, with the angle at which Draco's head hung, there was no way she could see his face.

"You," Narcissa said, and her voice was so deep that it sounded as if she was choking on blood. "We made a bargain."

"One that you never intended to keep," Harry retorted, sure of that now. He had distracted them easily, and they had agreed too easily when they could simply have sat behind their wards and ignored him, or even firecalled the Ministry and told them his current location. "You were going to come out and kill me, or hurt me, or something else. I'm going to take my partner and leave, now." He took another step, and continued walking even while Narcissa spoke, although he was sure she had cast a spell to make her voice clearer, he could hear her words so well.

"You will suffer for this. You will lose your partner. You will lose your freedom. You will lose your magic."

Harry did stop near the hole in the wards and glance back. "Well, really. The most you could do was charge me with trespassing for breaking your wards."

"The spell you cast on my husband," Narcissa said, and now she was hanging out the window the way Lucius had. "What was it?"

"I believe you heard the incantation as well as I did," Harry said, and held her eyes. He could feel the smile on his lips. It was vanishingly rare that he could smile like that, but it had always made his enemies at least turn pale, the way it did with Narcissa now. "And you know that's not an illegal spell. It's one the Aurors use on released prisoners they still consider a risk all the time."

"You have prevented him from being what he is," Narcissa whispered.

Harry shook his head. "That spell merely prevents him from casting if his intent is to harm another person. He can do anything else, even use Dark Arts spells, as long as they just benefit himself or others, or save his life. No offensive magic. That's all."

"You are _barbaric_," Narcissa said, and turned away, probably to bend over a fallen Lucius on the floor.

_No, _Harry thought, as he walked outside the hole in the wards and Apparated back to Cuthbert's Corner, cradling Draco in his arms. _I am more than you can understand, both Light and Dark, and able to use the weapons of both._

_And for this, I could have done worse. For this, I may yet destroy you._

* * *

"How are you feeling?"

Draco started and opened his eyes. It didn't take him long to recognize that he was in the bedroom of Cuthbert's Corner that he and Harry had cleansed of Dark influences, and that Harry was hanging over his bed, staring at him with anxious eyes.

Then he shifted, and his back blossomed into fire—although part of that was in memory, as Draco realized when he could breathe again through the intense pain. His back didn't hurt _quite _as much now as it had done when he first jumped through the window.

"I jumped through a window at the Manor," he said, trying the words out on his tongue, to see how they sounded. "And my father cast some spell at my back that was meant to slow me down."

Harry gave a quick nod. His eyes were dark. "I treated the visible burns I could see, but I think it goes deeper than that, and it's Dark magic. You'll need to tell me what you know about it, and we can see what books you found there."

Draco smiled and looked towards his robes, which Harry had taken off and flung on a chair, probably when he was removing them to treat Draco's back. "There are several that might be interesting," he said. "But I doubt that the curse will have gone deep enough to threaten my life. My father would have wanted to slow me down and capture me alive."

"You?" Harry frowned at him. "Even though he doesn't know who you are?"

"I meant any intruder, really," Draco said, and thoughtlessly tried to sit up. He hissed as his muscles protested.

Harry gently rolled him back onto his stomach. "I opened a hole in the wards to get you out of there," he said, "and I've been casting spells for the last few hours to make sure that you were safe and to try and find out what the curse may have done. Can you rest for a while? Because _I _need the rest."

"Sorry," Draco muttered, and reached out a hesitant hand to put it on Harry's shoulder. Harry endured that in silence, only glancing at him and wincing a little. "Are you all right?"

Harry shut his eyes and nodded. "Now," he said. "Seeing you fall like that—it was one of the worst moments of my life."

Draco scooted to the side, so Harry could lie down on the bed. "Then lie beside me, like this," he murmured.

Harry did, but hesitantly, his eyes flickering to the wounds on Draco's back that Draco still couldn't see. "I don't want to open your injuries again because I touch you in my sleep."

Draco snorted gently at him. "And you think _that's _likely to happen? You worry too much." Again he tugged on Harry's arm, and this time Harry grunted and fell onto his own stomach. Draco sighed as he arranged him, with Harry's head tucked into the curve of his neck and Harry's arm tucked around his shoulders. "Yes. That way."

Harry smiled. Draco knew that because he could feel Harry's lips moving against his neck. "You're awfully smug sometimes," Harry muttered sleepily.

Draco shook his head, then paused, because that came near to disarranging them. "Only practical. I see a problem, and I set out to solve it."

"Of course," Harry said, and sighed a little. "There's a lot of things we ought to be doing. Reading those books, and investigating whatever else you brought out of the Manor."

"A mirror shard," Draco said, but pressed down on Harry when he instinctively tried to sit up. "Shh. Later. We haven't been as good to ourselves as we should be, jumping straight from one adventure to another. Let's have some peace."

"If we can in a place like this," Harry muttered, but he shut up when Draco poked him.

Draco closed his eyes, and sighed. This was more than enough, for right now, with his lover beside him, and the mysteries that waited in the bloody letters on the walls of Cuthbert's Corner and the mirror shard inside his pockets held in abeyance. They wouldn't figure out those mysteries by exhausting themselves and starving themselves of relaxation.

He breathed in and out, held in place by Harry's comforting presence as much as by his own determination to relax, until he slid into sleep.

* * *

"I can't find any Dark magic on this."

Draco glanced up. He had spent most of his morning deciphering the code on the parchments that Harry had scribbled down, while Harry worked over the mirror shard that Draco had taken from the wall. Harry sat back now, rubbing his hands through his hair and scowling down at the mirror. It made Draco want to stand up, go over, and massage his shoulder. With a bit of difficulty, he refrained.

"Maybe it's the kind of spell that you can't sense unless the whole mirror is there," Draco said. "What made it stranger is it looked like that mirror had been deliberately removed, not shattered the way the other one was when I interfered with it. As if they'd decided that another one was too dangerous to have around after my mother was injured." He held his hand to his mouth and stifled a yawn as well as he could. Even after almost ten hours of sleep last night, he didn't feel completely equal to the task of working his way through the mad symbols and madder meanings that Ernhardt had scattered over the walls.

Harry stood up at once. "Do you need to rest for a little? Have me take a turn at the symbols?"

Draco shook his head. "I think it's still leftover exhaustion from the curse, the way you were yawning this morning from your magical exhaustion."

Harry flushed and turned back to the small desk he was working at. They'd dragged in two from one of the rooms on the first floor, after they had taken them through another one of those endless cleansings to make sure they were free of Dark magic. They were small and battered and scarred from acids, but Draco thought they would do. "I didn't think you saw that," muttered Harry.

"You don't need to hide from me," Draco said, and spoke the words with the kind of intensity that Harry would know meant he needed to look up.

He did, finally, a timid little flickering and darting of his eyes. Draco smiled at him and nodded firmly. "I meant it. And I appreciate the offer to take over for me, but no. These symbols are based on the kinds of private code that Potions masters use among themselves, and I don't think you know enough about that to pick them out."

"Maybe not," Harry said. He cast a _Tempus _Charm and blinked at it. "But maybe one reason we should stop is that we're hungry. Do you want some of those sandwiches the werewolves packed?"

Draco nodded. They had some food from Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade that they had purchased in disguise, but he wanted to hold off on replacing that for as long as they could. The search for them was becoming more and more frenzied, the longer the Ministry took to find them.

Harry left the room and came back quickly with a few packages wrapped in paper, Preservation Charms practically glowing on them. Draco smiled. Not all the werewolves in the Demlan Pack could cast spells, since some had been Muggles before they were bitten and others had had their wands broken, but those who could practiced their magic ferociously. It was something they might have lost, and they were determined not to.

The sandwiches were cheese and tomato, nothing special, but they filled Draco up. He studied the symbols and shook his head a little, carefully brushing away a crumb that had fallen onto the parchment.

"You have some idea of what it says, don't you."

Draco glanced up. It hadn't been a question. Harry was holding his own sandwich, without a bite as yet, and leaning forwards as though staring would yank the answers out of Draco all by itself. Draco gestured, and Harry sighed, took a large and obvious bite, and went on staring at him as he chewed.

"I do," Draco said. "Part of it is the spells that are meant to drive any stranger who stays long insane."

"And the rest?"

Draco grimaced. Right, he had already mentioned something like that to Harry once before. Harry always showed interest in knowing what each new danger was _now_, probing and grasping and testing.

"Another spell I can find says that—well, basically that any Dark magic used here can be absorbed into the house."

"And become part of the house's defenses?" Once again, Harry had paused, this time with only one bite of the sandwich down.

"I talk, you eat," Draco snapped, and turned towards him so he could keep an eye on Harry and make sure he fulfilled his part of the bargain. Harry muttered something that, with his mouth full of cheese, Draco couldn't make out for sure, but which sounded like, "Yes, Mum." Draco let it pass. This time. "Yes, if it's defensive Dark magic. Otherwise, it seems as if the house can use it as a weapon."

Harry grimaced and had to perform a few complicated swallowing motions before he could talk, which Draco was pleased to see. "Eurgh. That means that anything we use to defend ourselves against the magic here, or against anyone who attacks, could basically be used against us."

Draco nodded. "Exactly."

"What about those nightmare wards that we cast the first night?" Harry asked, gesturing so hard he nearly dropped his sandwich. "Are they going to come back to haunt us?"

Draco shook his head. "It looks like it means only Dark magic used within the ring of the house's symbols. The wards are technically outside. At least, I haven't found the kinds of gaps in the message that I would have if some of it was on the outer walls. I think we have everything that Ernhardt wrote on the walls and ceiling."

"Why would he leave an exception like that?" Harry frowned down at his sandwich. Draco reached out and picked up his wrist, leading the food more towards Harry's mouth. Harry grimaced at him and rolled his eyes. Draco rolled his right back. He wasn't above forcing his partner to eat if nothing else would work. "In the wards, I mean," Harry added, after an exaggerated bite that nevertheless didn't seem to fill his mouth with much bread. "It seems like a space that anyone could creep through who wanted to."

"I don't really think Ernhardt thought like that," Draco said. "That he was that sane. And remember that he had powerful wards on the house, like the dark dogs. No one could just 'creep through who wanted to.' If they were inside the house, presumably he wanted them to be, and he had other methods to deal with them."

Harry huffed and nodded. "Anyway," he said, and turned back to the mirror shard. "I haven't found anything more than a faint trace of Dark magic on this. I don't know what they used it for, but you'd think there would be more magic if it was a defense."

"I don't know," Draco said slowly, thinking about the mirror he'd shattered, and the thick silver necklace that his mother wore, and the rough patch where the second mirror had been removed. "I don't know if it was a defense against anyone coming into the house, I meant," he added, when Harry looked at him and blinked hard. "My mother was _wearing _that necklace. She would have had to come close to an enemy to launch spells from it or through it, and I know my parents. They don't favor close combat."

"Plus," Harry added, a quiet dawning of understanding in his face, "the mirrors didn't sense you when you entered the house, did they? Or that one that you faced, at least. It wasn't until you interfered with it that it reacted."

Draco nodded. "If it was defensive magic, it was a poor example of its kind."

Harry exhaled slowly and faced the mirror shard again. "I thought I would recognize a defense against Dark magic of any kind," he muttered. "But what if I was looking for the wrong thing?" He picked up his wand.

"What do you mean?" Draco leaned forwards to look over his shoulder.

"I don't know, exactly," Harry said in an abstracted voice. "Let me think."

Draco fell silent. He knew what it meant when Harry spoke in that voice. He was on the brink of an insight, a fragile, fugitive thought that would run away again if Draco disturbed it. Draco still leaned over his shoulder, ready to offer help in an instant if he could, but not speaking, and barely daring to breathe as Harry's wand flickered over the mirror shard. Draco didn't think he was casting spells, so much as tracing out the movements of a series of spells he had already cast, or might cast.

Then Harry stuck out a hand. Draco stared at it, not knowing what he wanted.

"You said that one of the books you brought out of your parents' house was a natural history book with no markings in it," Harry said. His voice had grown hard and distant, as though he and Draco didn't know each other at all. "Let me see it."

Draco clamped his lips shut over all the _many _things he could have said, and hurried to the bed where they had sprawled the books out. Harry had taken a look at them that morning and admitted he didn't have any more idea than Draco did why the natural history book would be worth protecting.

_Maybe he's coming up with something new._

Draco bit his lips and nodded to himself. He might have, and just because Draco didn't ordinarily think of Harry and books in the same sentence didn't mean that Harry was stupid.

He plopped the natural history book into Harry's hands. Harry whispered a spell, and the book fell open to the second page, with several more places later in it glowing red. Draco knew that meant the magic had located the word or phrase Harry was looking for.

Harry read the sentence his magic had found, something Draco couldn't do because the book was propped up right in front of Harry's eyes, and exhaled hard. Then he held it up so Draco could read it. Draco leaned close, eagerly.

_ But in rare circumstances, wizards may share the traits of magical creatures that they interact with…_

Draco blinked and flipped to another place in the book. There was a sentence there about wizards creating spells that mimicked the gifts of Lethifolds. And another sentence about three-quarters of the way through, when Draco let it fall open to that page, talked about how wizards could develop those spells until they were wandless and "natural."

Draco shook his head and turned back to Harry. "So what?" he asked aloud. "You can make any spell that you cast often enough natural to you. I know you can do a wandless Summoning Charm. I can do a few spells wandlessly enough when I concentrate. And there's no evidence that my family ever interbred with vampires or the like, thank you very much."

"I don't think vampires can have children anyway," Harry said absently, "since they're _corpses._" He snatched the book back and looked up at Draco with a shining revelation in his eyes that Draco didn't share yet, but wanted to, very much. "Don't you see, Draco? That necklace and the traces I found on the mirror shard were defenses against _themselves. _Probably against your mother, I would say, if she was wearing the necklace."

"You're making no sense," Draco snapped. "My parents still act as one. My mother went through with the ritual to forget me, after all." That made him hurt as though he'd cracked a tooth. He tried his best to ignore it. His parents had exiled him seven years ago. You'd think he'd be more used to the pain that came with any thought of them.

"Not a wandless _spell_," Harry said. "A natural, innate _gift. _One that might start exercising itself without your conscious will, because you lack the will necessary to oppose it. The way someone could if they'd spent too much time studying Dark Arts and could no longer tell the difference between the right and the wrong time to use it, for example."

Draco took a step back from him. "You're saying—"

"That I think your mother is twisted, and was trying to protect herself against exercising her flaw?" Harry finished. "Yes." He leaned forwards, eyes on Draco. "And when we shattered the mirror and the necklace, we destroyed her chance. She's sliding down into the darkness, probably going mad steadily, and we have no idea what her flaw is, or how sane she still might be."


	5. The Twisted Truth

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Five-The Twisted Truth_

"You can't be sure," Draco said. He was almost stuttering, and Harry saw the state of his knuckles when he looked down. Draco's hands were tight enough to bring blood if he kept driving his nails into his skin that way. "You can't be sure that she really is. It makes sense, but it also makes sense for us to look in every direction and under every bed for twisted, since we've spent so much time hunting them."

Harry nodded without looking away from him. He felt the immense sorrow and sympathy at the back of his mind, which he wasn't calling pity only because Draco would kill him if he thought Harry felt that way. But he wouldn't let Draco back away from this, or from him because Harry had been the one to tell him. He could have all the time he needed to deal with it, of course. That was important.

"There are other explanations," Draco said, pacing in a circle. Harry was starting to wish he had found some other way of breaking the news, at least, but he'd simply blurted it out when the idea fully formed in his mind. "She could have had some disease. Some enemy could have threatened them, and they could have used the mirror and necklace as protection from that. No wonder she was pissed when we shattered them."

Harry waited until he was sure he wouldn't interrupt, and then cleared his throat gently. When Draco whirled on him, he whispered, "And what theory makes hiding the natural history book make sense?"

Draco all but snarled at him.

"I only want you to think about this," Harry said, in a much slower and calmer voice than he really wanted to use when he saw how much Draco was suffering. But yelling at him, even out of concern, would upset him more right now. "The natural history book has those passages about wizards mimicking natural magical creatures' gifts and ways to defend against them. That's most of what the book is about, in fact. Yes, they could have an enemy who threatened them with Dementors or Lethifolds. But that wouldn't explain the mirror or the necklace, would it?"

After a moment, Draco reluctantly shook his head. He had been through the same training Harry had, Harry thought, watching him with his chest aching. He knew as well as Harry did that few indirect defenses worked against Dark magical creatures, especially ones like the two species that Harry had named. A Dementor wouldn't be frightened of its reflection; only a Patronus Charm could fend it off. And a Lethifold was the same way.

Draco finally sat down on the bed, raking his fingers through his hair. "I don't know what to do if it's true," he mumbled, not looking at Harry.

And that was the heart of it, Harry thought, the reason he had resisted so long. He moved over and put his hand on Draco's shoulder, rolling it back and forth until Draco tilted his head back and blinked at him.

"You're acting as though I'm going to abandon you," Harry whispered to him. "I'm _not, _you know. I'll never back away as long as there's something I can do. I don't know if we can keep your mother from becoming a twisted, especially since we destroyed the defenses that seem to have done something against it, but I'm going to try as hard as I can to find some way out of this for you."

Draco gave him a rictus grin in response. "How can we even help her?" he asked. "She's been my enemy for years. She hired someone to have me killed." Then he bowed his head, and it dangled on his neck. "She's forgotten all about me."

Harry stood with his hands on Draco's shoulders, until Draco's breathing smoothed and calmed, and he thought the chances were good that Draco was paying attention to him. Then he said, "We're going about this the way we would the hunt with any other twisted. First we have to figure out what her flaw is."

"But every other time, we've had some idea," Draco muttered, looking aside. "Except for Alto."

"And with Morningstar," Harry pointed out. "Her flaw was the kind that we couldn't fight even when we knew about." He flinched a little. He certainly hoped that Narcissa Malfoy's flaw didn't include the power to erase memories.

"All right, so other times we've hunted twisted, we haven't known what their flaws were," Draco said, tugging his hair. Harry reached up and took his hand, holding it gently, so that Draco wouldn't hurt himself. Draco gave him a single dark look that told Harry he recognized the origin of what Harry was doing, but then he leaned back and snorted, accepting the restraint. "That doesn't mean it'll be easier this time."

"No, it doesn't," Harry agreed. "But we're united, and they don't know about you. That's actually a real advantage, if you think of it." He grimaced and pushed ahead, ignoring the incredulous look Draco gave him. "It _is_. Yes, this isn't ideal, Draco, and I don't think any of it will be. But although they know that I came back to hammer on my wards, they don't know who my partner is. They don't know that you have intimate knowledge of their characters."

"I _used _to know who they were." Draco shook his head, refusing to be comforted. "But we were separated for seven years, and I had no idea about the necklace and the mirror. What can I tell you?"

"A lot." Gently, Harry lifted Draco's chin with two fingers and made Draco meet his eyes. "For example, would Lucius stand by her no matter what, or would he have some sort of contingency plan where he would kill her if she went insane?"

Draco blinked and flinched at the same time, but answered. "He would stand by her no matter what. He would only kill her if she was going to kill him and he really _believed _she was. Her just threatening to do it wouldn't convince him." He hesitated, then added, "Or if he really believed that she was going to damage the Malfoy fortune and line."

"He doesn't seem convinced of that yet," Harry said quietly. "Since he was going to do some sort of magic with the mirror shards to defend against me, and he talked with her and they agreed on that before he came into the study where you were hiding."

Draco nodded in silence, observing Harry. When Harry just looked back, not knowing what he was waiting for, Draco added, "So-what's the next step? Convince me that you can find out."

Harry nodded. "Well, think about it. Not many more spells are actually _deflected _by a mirror. They can be _reflected. _But your enemy just hurls another curse in the next instant. And we already discussed how few magical creatures can be handled by indirect defenses, instead of a direct spell that works on them."

Draco narrowed his eyes to slits. "You have some idea already, don't you?"

Harry swallowed. "Yeah, I do." He paused, wondering if Draco wanted him to say it or had already arrived at the conclusion himself, but he said nothing, and his stare was as potent as a spell, and Harry reluctantly continued. "I think, with the mirrors themselves and the snakes on the necklace, that her flaw has something to do with a basilisk."

Draco closed his eyes and bowed his head again. Harry rubbed his shoulders in silence, letting him do all the grieving he needed for his mother. Or perhaps for the potentiality lost with his mother, the relationship he perhaps could have recovered if she wasn't twisted.

Then Draco looked up, and his eyes were wild and not yet accepting. "You could only be thinking of that because of your experience with basilisks during our second year of school. What if you're wrong?"

"I could be thinking it because of that," Harry agreed, slowly, inclining his head. "But I really don't think that's it."

"But you can't be _sure_." Draco climbed to his feet under his hands and pointed one finger at him. "So you might be mistaking the symptoms for something else, and when we go to face my mother, there's a chance that we might die from her flaw. I want you to be _sure _before we try to do something about her. I want you to bring me _proof_."

Harry waited a few seconds, and Draco's hand wavered and started to fall. Then Harry asked, as gently as he could, "And are _you_ really sure that she doesn't have some connection to a basilisk or are you deciding that she doesn't because it would make you feel better?"

Draco sagged. Harry grabbed him under the arms and made sure that he sat on the bed instead of the floor. Draco sat there with his head bent down almost onto his knees, breathing harshly. Harry crouched beside him and clutched his hands until Draco stirred enough that Harry thought he was paying attention.

"I don't know for sure," Harry said quietly. "I'll do what I can to find out. There are-things I might be able to do that no one else could."

Draco stared at him blankly for a second, and then nodded. "Because you're a Parselmouth?"

Harry inclined his head. "Of course, no test may prove it for certain, but it would be interesting to find out if she understood what I was saying if I spoke Parseltongue to her, at least."

A faint, ghastly smile passed across Draco's lips, and he was obviously picking up words in his head, turning them around and waiting for some way to put them in order. He finally offered, "I remember that my mother, some time after the war, expressed an interest in breeding magical snakes."

"Thank you," Harry whispered, brushing a kiss over Draco's knuckles and standing up. "I know that cost a lot for you to say."

Draco leaned his head on Harry's shoulder, and made a short, harsh sound. It might have been a laugh, it might have been a sob, it might have been a cough. Harry sat there and let him rest, stroking his hair.

If his partner could support _him_ when Harry was drooping with grief over Lionel, surely Harry could do the same for him when he was grieving his mother, or what his mother might become. A year ago, Harry wouldn't have believed it. He would have thought that all his ability to be compassionate for someone else's grief had died with Lionel.

But now he knew he hadn't. Because Draco was more than his grief or loss. Draco was his life.

* * *

"You don't think I should come with you."

Draco spoke the words flatly, and hated the way his voice shook. He promptly slammed his lips shut and stared at Harry, daring him to comment.

Harry kept his head bowed, working over a parchment that he'd covered with drawings of snakes that morning. Draco didn't consider them to be very _good _drawings of snakes, and had added some of his own, including the one from the Slytherin crest. Harry had explained that he could usually only speak Parseltongue when he concentrated on a snake, and getting there and being unable to do it was not in the plan.

"I don't think you should," Harry said, when he, presumably, felt the deep drill holes from Draco's stare enough to realize that Draco wasn't letting him escape without saying something.

"Why not?" Draco turned and walked away from the table with the parchment spread on it to stand in the doorway of the bedroom, staring down the corridor they thought they'd fully swept for Dark spells. The dull, bloody letters of Ernhardt's wards glowed as Draco watched them.

"Because you can't speak Parseltongue," Harry said. There was a long silence during which Draco could practically hear Harry's lungs inflating. He wished Harry would speak. Nothing hurt as much as this waiting. "And because you're too involved. The way Rudie was with the search for Macgeorge."

Draco turned and stared at him. _That _particular reason wasn't one he had expected Harry to offer. "But that worked out in the end."

"When no one could have known it would." Harry raised his eyebrows. "Yes, I understand that you want to come, and I understand that you would probably be fine. But." He licked his lips. "I'm still seeing you fall out that window whenever I think about us escaping the other day."

"Technically, that was my father's fault, not my mother's," Draco muttered, but he subsided at the look Harry gave him. How many times had he wanted Harry to stay out of trouble, to stay with him? And he had been angry when Harry insisted on going off and acting on his own anyway.

At least Harry was telling him straight-out this time what he wanted to happen, and the way he expected things to work out.

_Which doesn't mean that they'll work out that way, _Draco thought, his fingers working for a moment in the folds of his shirt.

"Please, stay here?" Harry whispered. "For me?" He followed Draco's gaze down the corridor for a second, and nodded. "If you want to keep the door closed the entire time so that the letters don't influence you, that would be fine with me. I just-I want you safe more than I want anything else."

Draco sighed. The wounds on his back ached when he shifted. So perhaps Harry was right, and he belonged flat on his stomach in a bed for a while longer. He swallowed and reached out to rest his hands on Harry's shoulders. "If you don't come back whole after that little speech you made me, then I'm never, ever forgiving you," he whispered.

Harry smiled and kissed him on the forehead, in the exact place Draco's lightning bolt scar would be if he had one. "That's fair. But I promise, I'm going to come back as whole as I can." He rested one hand beneath Draco's chin, not forcing Draco to look at him, but simply stroking the soft stubble there. "I'll come back."

With that reassurance, Draco thought as he watched Harry head towards the front of the house, he had to be content.

* * *

Harry appeared again outside the Manor, and spent a moment listening. There was a kind of ward that would cause an alarm to ring elsewhere the minute someone wanted appeared near it. Harry wouldn't have discounted the possibility that Lucius and Narcissa would have put up such a ward and connected it to the Ministry. The Aurors had probably put them near Ron and Hermione's house, Ginny's place, and Harry's and Draco's homes.

But the ward couldn't alert the people on the other end without making a distinctive, thin ringing noise, and Harry didn't hear it. He smiled and strode forwards. It seemed the Malfoys preferred to handle their problems themselves.

Or maybe they were afraid of what Aurors would find, if they came to the Manor and close to Narcissa Malfoy.

Harry reached into his pocket, making sure that his parchment with the images of the snakes was there. It bent comfortingly beneath his fingers. Sometimes he had been able to speak Parseltongue by doing nothing more than imagining a serpent, but he didn't want to take a chance this time.

Particularly in light of all the other chances he had been taking lately.

He halted a good distance from the wards, wrapped a Disillusionment Charm around himself, and then stepped into sight of the fence. Immediately, he felt the ragged edges of the hole he had torn in the wards.

Harry froze. Even if Lucius was hurt more than Harry had thought he was by Harry's spell yesterday and Narcissa was preoccupied with attending to him, they still should have repaired the hole. While it lasted, anyone could come through it into the Manor property.

"Mr. Potter. I've been looking forward to the chance to meet you."

Harry turned slowly towards the voice, being careful to move in a way that wouldn't make the Disillusionment Charm ripple too fast over its surroundings and make it visible. Although, from the certainty in the voice, that wasn't going to matter.

A tall, red-haired wizard bowed from his place next to the tree where he hadn't been a moment before. His hair wasn't the color of the Weasleys', instead having a strange, metallic shimmer, as if made of ruby wires. He had black eyes and a firm chin and white teeth and white robes. They bore a crossed symbol on the left side, which Harry made out as a wand and a tooth when he concentrated. He had never seen that particular crest before. A wizarding dentist?

"Why don't you take off the Disillusionment Charm?" the wizard asked softly. "We will deal better with each other if we can see face to face and eye to eye."

Harry felt a sharp tickle at the bottom of his mind, the same place that the Imperius Curse affected when someone was foolish enough to cast it at him. He stiffened and shook his head before he remembered that the wizard shouldn't be able to see him.

But that hadn't stopped him so far.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, wanting to see the stranger's reaction to a voice emerging out of thin air. "And why do you think that I need my teeth checked?"

The wizard laughed quietly, looking straight at the point Harry's voice had emerged from. He really had unnatural eyes, Harry thought, too bright and wide. He wondered if perhaps the man had ingested an illegal potion. There were a couple that might cause that reaction.

"This symbol?" The wizard's fingers rubbed the crest. "That was a joke of the wizards who first established my Corps. They saw us as removing little problems and aches from within the Ministry itself, like someone yanking broken teeth." He paused, then added, "And little though it profits you to have my name, I will give it to you. Edward Montgomery."

Harry nodded. He had suspected it was the wizard Jenkins had warned them about, the one who had approved Elder's transfer to the Socrates Corps, but he hadn't known for sure.

"You aren't unfamiliar with it," Montgomery said, his fingers rubbing up and down his wand now. "I wondered. Well, are you going to remove the charm so we can talk to each other like adult wizards?"

The pulsing in the back of Harry's mind was stronger this time. He grinned without meaning it. Of course, Montgomery could probably figure out that he didn't mean it without the extra help of hearing Harry's thoughts.

"I don't mean to disillusion _you_, sir," Harry whispered, "but you as might as well know that I'm immune to the Imperius Curse."

For a brief moment, something flashed across Montgomery's face. It was buried again in seconds, and Harry reckoned there were a lot of people who wouldn't have recognized it.

But he had. It was the same sort of rage he had seen on Voldemort's face, on Snape's, on Quirrell's, when something didn't go according to plan. It seemed this man was in much better control of himself than Voldemort or Quirrell ever had been, and he had to be powerful if he could cast the Imperius Curse nonverbally and without visible wand movements.

But that didn't matter, not if he had that temper. A temper Harry might be able to push him into losing. He'd had several people tell him that was the only talent he really possessed, after all.

"Very well," Montgomery said. "You must know that I cannot allow you to go on tormenting the good Malfoys."

Harry held back his snort. "And what about their forsaking their son, their only blood heir, was good?" he asked.

Montgomery's head turned just slightly, to look back over his shoulder, where he probably thought Draco was creeping up.

It was an unexpected advantage, but one that Harry had no intention of losing. He immediately struck, so fast that he surprised even himself, a one-two jab of a curse that aimed directly at Montgomery's wand, to break it.

Montgomery spun, his cloak flaring out, and then flaring with blue light as it absorbed the curse. Harry grunted. That was another advantage that he hadn't looked for, but this time, all to the enemy.

Montgomery came around swinging, and he didn't seem at all discomfited by the Disillusionment Charm, if the Shattering Charm he sent at Harry's kneecaps was any indication.

Harry leaped that one, and struck out again as he landed, heavily enough that Montgomery staggered to the side and grunted. The Blasting Curse hadn't hit as solidly as Harry had wanted, probably because Montgomery was warned about his opponent's abilities and already moving, but at least _something _had touched down.

Montgomery faced him without moving for a minute, his wand twitching in his hand as though stirred by the passing breeze. Harry held his breath. Was Montgomery calling for help? Harry could take him, he was sure, but two or three other wizards, and on the very edge of the Malfoy wards-

Then he recognized the movements of the wand and the spell they were meant to perform, and leaped to the side.

He very nearly escaped. The silver cage above him came down hard, the bars jarring Harry as he slammed into them. Harry stepped back and hit the bars with the same flare of fury he had used against the Malfoy wards-or as near to it as he could get when he didn't have the sight of Draco injured to set him off.

The bars held. Harry grimaced. He had to admit he had known they would. This was a cage of the kind used to hold enraged werewolves, and the silver material of the bars wasn't its main weapon. It was strong, it was solid, and it prevented anyone from using magic on it from the inside.

Harry turned his head slightly towards Montgomery. He was standing in front of Harry and studying him, shaking his head a little. Harry realized that something, probably either the shock of landing in the cage or a spell Montgomery had cast and Harry hadn't felt, had broken his Disillusionment Charm.

"You aren't much to look at," Montgomery muttered, rolling his eyes. "Not much to have caused the Ministry and the Malfoys so much trouble." He turned his head and raised his voice. "My lord, my lady, I have the nuisance contained."

There was a ripple in the air, and Lucius and Narcissa stepped through the hole in the wards. Harry sighed in disgust. He hadn't even noticed the ripples that marked their own Disillusionment Charms.

"Thank you," Lucius said to Montgomery, and went on, talking about terms that Harry didn't bother to listen to. His eyes were on Narcissa, who never looked away from Harry, and kept stroking the scar that wound about her throat, too.

Harry blinked. The idea that had come to him was silly, perhaps, but what did he have to lose? It wasn't as though he could use any other kind of magic from inside this cage.

His eyes fixed on the way the scar coiled about Narcissa's neck, he hissed the Parseltongue command for "_Come to me_."

And Narcissa screamed.


	6. Parseltongue Problems

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Six-Parseltongue Problems_

Narcissa was staggering in a circle, her eyes shut as tightly as though she really _was _a basilisk who didn't want to see her own reflection in a mirror. Harry saw her fingers curve into claws, and Lucius take a step towards her. She didn't notice him, and after a second, Lucius moved away, eyes fixed on her.

Then the scar around Narcissa's neck lifted itself into the air.

Harry stared. This hadn't been a result he foresaw even when he decided that Narcissa's flaw had to have something to do with snakes. The scar waved back and forth like a banner, like a ribbon, and then with the slower, more deliberate movements of a cobra. It turned its upright end, which Harry supposed he had to call the head even though it had no face, in Harry's direction, and then the end split and a forked tongue came out.

The scar began to slide down Narcissa's body in the direction of the cage. One second it was coiled around her arm; then it dropped to the ground and undulated across the grass like a current of dirty water.

Montgomery said something complicated and quiet, stepping in front of the scar as though he thought he would actually manage to prevent it from reaching Harry. Harry wanted to laugh. Montgomery didn't look as though he had expected this to happen, either, and now he thought he could _stop _it?

The scar passed through the spell, which had created a complicated web of magic, as though it didn't exist. Then its forked tongue appeared again, and it aimed straight at Harry, correcting a slight turn to the right.

Harry took a deep breath. He had only one weapon that might work on it-although maybe not, considering the violent reaction Narcissa had had to it in the first place. But no one else could use it, even if someone turned up unexpectedly to save him.

"_What are you doing?"_ he hissed at the scar. "_Why are you attacking me? Am I your enemy because the woman you were on is?_"

The scar came to a stop, rearing up, more like a snake than ever. Harry could see that its "body" had grown thicker, and here and there was a glint of light as if from scales. The tongue darted out again. Harry thought for a moment it might answer.

But it didn't. Instead, it slid through the gaps between the bars, as quick as a falling star, and reared up towards his leg.

Harry jumped away, wincing as his back slammed into the bars. He didn't have a lot of room here. And the scar seemed undismayed by his attempt to escape, anyway, circling around and once again taking precise aim. It looked as though it was trying to bite him in the calf of his left leg this time.

Harry hissed again at it. "_Will you leave me alone? I have the ability to kill you, but I don't want to._" That was pure bluff. He wondered if snakes could sense lies. He had never tried it with the basilisk or any of the other snakes he had occasionally spoken to over the years.

The scar stopped, swaying back and forth. Harry found it unnerving to be looked at by something that had no eyes, but he had to accept that it was regarding him somehow, and that it seemed to have paused at last.

Harry stood up and spoke again in Parseltongue, ignoring the spells that Montgomery and maybe Lucius were casting beyond the cage; he thought he could hear multiple voices chanting. "_Does your mistress know what you are? How to control you? You wouldn't want to leave her before she learned fully how to control you, would you?"_

The scar shrank back and seemed to turn its head-if you could call it that-towards the gaps between the bars to look for Narcissa. Harry caught his breath and stood a little more easily. Just keeping the strange creature from killing him when he had no idea how to fight it was an accomplishment.

"You should keep still, Mr. Potter." Montgomery's voice was low and commanding, maybe meant to be reassuring. Harry didn't glance towards him, though, not wanting to take his eyes off the scar. "You don't know what the creature might do if you let down your vigilance."

"And you have no idea what I've been saying to it in Parseltongue," Harry murmured back. He thought he could feel Montgomery hesitate, but once again, it was hard to look away and check.

The scar did one more sway back and forth. Then it slid out through the bars again, towards Narcissa, and curled like a living thread up her leg and around her neck. Narcissa stopped screaming when it did so and touched her hand to her skin, stroking the scar like it was a pet. Harry thought he saw it move under her hand, rubbing against the palm.

Lucius turned to regard him, his eyes like burning stars. Montgomery stood beside him, his wand resting in both hands, his glance traveling so slowly between Narcissa and Harry that it was hard to read.

"You will die for what you've done to my wife," Lucius said.

Harry had only one chance that he could see, and he took it. "Oh, really?" he asked casually, while his stomach flipped around inside him. "Then you want to destroy the only living Parselmouth you know of, the only one who might be able to help her get control of her flaw?" He used the word more for Montgomery than for Lucius, who might or might not have heard what the Ministry called wandless magic in the twisted.

Montgomery's mouth drew tight. Lucius said, "I have no idea why you use that word. If you are referring to her appearance, if you _dare_-"

"No," Harry said, and grinned at him, even though he had rarely felt less like grinning in his life. "I mean that she has a wandless gift of magic, one that comes with a few other traits that the Ministry doesn't like discussing." He watched Montgomery from the corner of his eye, and saw him stand up straight. No, he hadn't been entirely honest with the Malfoys, no matter how closely he was allied with them, Harry decided. Still, maybe he hadn't known that there was any danger of one of them being flawed, and so hadn't thought that he _needed _to speak about that.

"You have no idea what she has, and what she does not." Lucius's voice had gone heavy and dangerous, the way someone's voice tended to do when he was contemplating murder. Harry took a moment out to mourn that he was so familiar with that particular sound. Lucius's wand lifted and aimed straight at Harry as he continued. "I grow tired of you and your interfering with my _wife_. I do not know who your partner was who escaped from the Manor the other day, but I hope I damaged him."

Harry gritted his teeth and said nothing. Getting angry about Draco right now, especially when Lucius had no idea who he was insulting, would only result in him being caged more tightly. He wrapped his cloak more firmly around himself instead and turned to face Montgomery.

"Congratulations on capturing one of the most dangerous Aurors alive," he said, keeping his voice as calm as though he really meant the words. "What are you going to do now?"

Montgomery came a step forwards. A second later, he turned around and looked at Lucius and Narcissa. Lucius had his arm around his wife's shoulders. Harry didn't think Narcissa had stopped caressing the scar since it climbed up her neck and became part of her again.

"I think that you should return to your manor now," Montgomery said, low and charged. "There are things that Potter needs to tell me which relate to the Malfoy disgrace we discussed the other day."

"I have as much right to remain here and listen to tales of a Malfoy disgrace as you have to question him about it," Lucius said. Narcissa made a small hissing sound, and her curved fingers rested on Lucius's arm for a moment. Lucius shot her a concerned look that Harry didn't miss, but then he shook his head and turned back to face Montgomery. "I want to know what you're going to ask him."

Montgomery sighed. "Very well. This has to do with a Malfoy disgrace that you went through a blood ritual to forget. Do you want to remember or not?"

Lucius stood taller, and he hissed something at Montgomery that Harry, mastery of Parseltongue or not, couldn't understand. Then Lucius turned away, dragging Narcissa in the direction of the Manor. Narcissa struggled against him, then abruptly snapped her spine stiff and walked more naturally. They stepped through the hole in their wards, and the hole flowed back together, repairing itself seamlessly, a moment later.

Montgomery turned to face Harry again. "You're right that you're too valuable to kill," he said. "But you must know that death will be your fate in the end anyway."

"Then I have no reason to cooperate," Harry said, and sat down in the cage, leaning his back against the bars. "I might as well lose my life without betraying my own principles and friends."

Montgomery gave a delicate little sigh. "I didn't want to take you to meet my cousin," he said, "not so soon. But it seems that we have no choice. I'm not the best at extracting information from people, while she does it so very well." He aimed his wand at the cage, and it rose into the air, turning slightly. Harry wondered why. It wasn't enough to disorient him, and that seemed to be the only reason Montgomery would have for moving the cage like that.

Then he saw Montgomery taking what looked like an ivory button from his shirt, and guessed. It was a Portkey, and Montgomery reached out to take hold of the cage with one hand at the same moment as he closed the other one around the Portkey.

Harry closed his eyes. Montgomery wasn't looking at him at the moment, and it seemed like there might be a chance to leave a small trace of his presence.

He dug his teeth sharply into his hand at the base of his thumb and pulled. The skin split; blood welled up. Harry didn't flinch. He'd had to go through harsher pains than that during some of his Auror training.

He thrust his hand through the gap between the bars, and nothing sprang up to punish him, probably because he wasn't trying to aim his wand or do magic. Instead, the blood dripped to the ground on the leaves and tree roots a second before the Portkey activated and spun them away from Malfoy Manor into a dark, crowded room.

Draco might be able to use his blood to track him. Harry knew there were plenty of Dark spells that worked like that.

It depended on Draco coming here in the first place and finding it, of course. But at the moment, he didn't have many other options.

* * *

_Fuck you, anyway, Harry._

Draco was pacing in a circle around the bedroom, more worried than he wanted to admit. Then he snorted and rubbed the back of his neck. Why _not _admit it aloud? Harry wasn't here to chide him for it, and no one else was here to scold him.

No one might ever know where he had gone if Harry didn't return. They had been careful to keep contact with Harry's friends to a minimum, and Draco didn't have many friends, after seven years of exile from the pure-blood world, to talk to anyway.

Draco turned with a slight frown towards the door. It was too bad that he no longer had house-elves. One of them could go and check whether Harry was all right, or even take Draco to Malfoy Manor, without alerting anyone else. Including Harry if he was all right and would be furious at Draco for taking the chance.

Then Draco paused, one hand resting just above the doorknob. He'd been about to open it and glare into the stubbornly deserted corridor with its glow of bloody letters for the fifth time.

_But doesn't Harry have a house-elf? One that was left to him from the House of Black because he was technically my cousin Sirius's heir? _

Draco couldn't remember at the moment what Harry had done with the elf, or whether it had died-although he thought Harry would have told him if something like that had happened. But there was no reason that he couldn't call on it, either, and see what happened. He took a step back, doing it before he could convince himself it wasn't a good idea.

"Kreacher!" His voice seemed to echo and hang in the empty room. "Draco Malfoy commands your attendance."

Nothing happened for long seconds. Draco wondered whether the defenses on the house, either the original ones that Ernhardt had raised or the extra ones he and Harry had placed, might be too brutal for a house-elf to get through.

But then there was a noise like the _pop _of a dislocating shoulder, and an elf appeared in front of Draco, bowing and scraping with his hand across his stomach and his ears drooping so low that they brushed the floor.

"Kreacher is mosts happy to being with Master Draco Malfoy. Master Draco should have be calling sooner!" Kreacher lifted his head and sniffed around the room. "This is no fit place for the House of Black to be stayings!" He glared at Draco as if the choice of accommodation was his fault.

Draco smiled. Maybe it _was _his fault, for agreeing with Harry that these accommodations were good enough. And it seemed that his parents' ritual hadn't affected the way Kreacher perceived him, probably because nothing could get rid of Draco's Black blood even if his Malfoy name had been stripped from him. _Interesting._

"I know," Draco said, but he held a hand up before Kreacher could spring into action cleaning the blankets and bed, which, from the way he stared at them, was the next thing on his mind. "Kreacher, Harry went hunting a while ago and left me behind. He should have returned by now, but he hasn't. I suppose you can find him?" He held out his hand. "I want you to take me to him."

Kreacher gave a great, put-upon sigh. "Master Harry is not givings Kreacher good work, and then there is much," he said, shaking his head. He took Draco's hand. "Kreacher can finds sometimes-nice Master. Master Draco must be holdings on tight."

Draco nodded and clutched Kreacher's hand, making sure that he had his wand tucked into his sleeve. He didn't know what kind of situation they would appear in the middle of, but knowing Harry, it was likely to be either a battle or something to do with an enemy holding Harry captive.

The world around him jerked and popped, as though they were traveling through a mass of crunchy porridge. Then they appeared in a large stone room crowded with shadows from dancing torches. Draco flicked his eyes to the floor as something there impinged on his consciousness, and he saw the thick brown marks of dried blood there, tracing out some sort of ritual pattern.

Then he looked up, and saw the great silver cage with Harry in it in the center of that pattern, and the wizard and witch, with identical eerie red hair, wheeling towards him, wands in their hands.

_Battle, then. _Draco smiled at them and cast the Strangling Curse, shouting an order to Kreacher to free Harry.

* * *

Harry winced as he clutched his arm. Montgomery's interrogation techniques were-innovative, but painful.

_Both of them, _he thought, his eyes darting back and forth between the wizard and witch in front of him. Edward Montgomery, the one who had captured him, stood at the far end of the ritual circle, his wand lifted as he moved it back and forth with sharp precision, murmuring something under his breath that Harry couldn't make out. He wasn't sure that he would have wanted to hear it if he could, though. The words didn't have the characteristic edge to them that Latin gave, and they _definitely _weren't Parseltongue, and they placed a thick film like soot on his skin from top to toe.

On the nearer end of the circle stood Hannah Montgomery, her head bowed and her lips moving in some of what Harry thought were the same words spilling from Edward's. Not that it mattered, Harry thought. He didn't know what effectiveness they could have without wandwork, and she hadn't lifted her wand yet except to curse him.

Harry winced as the dead weight of his arm shifted yet again next to him, like a piece of wood strapped to his shoulder. She could be good with her wandwork, of course. But lighting all the nerves in his arm on fire at once wasn't the kind of effectiveness he wanted to encourage.

Hannah took a step back, her head raised to the roof of the room, her hands following a second later. Her voice was going so fast now that her words blurred, and Harry twisted to watch her cousin instead.

Edward had lowered his wand and was chanting in the same way. The film of invisible soot on Harry's skin grew deeper.

Harry clenched his hand on the bars of the cage, then pulled it back with a wince when he realized how much magic was traveling through the silver. It would probably burn him to stay holding onto it, and he had no desire to have more than one hand disabled.

If a chance came for escape, no matter how stupid and impossible, he was going to take it.

Hannah's voice slowed, her words surging like the tide, and her eyes opened, fixing on him. Harry shuddered. He hadn't had much chance to notice her eyes before she started to "work" on him, but he'd thought they were grey-green. They were bright red now, to the point that they cast a faint light over the bloody runes on the floor.

"What are you doing?" he whispered. It wasn't like they'd told him before they began this. They'd just tortured him a bit, trying to find out about Draco and what Harry could tell them about Narcissa's snake scar, and then hauled the cage into the middle of what looked like a pre-prepared ritual circle and began.

Then there was a distinct _pop_ that made Harry look up, wondering what kind of villains had house-elves deliver something to them in the middle of a ritual. Of course, knowing the Montgomerys, they were probably having carving knives or extra vials of blood brought.

But what stood there was Draco, clutching Kreacher's hand. Draco had already cast the Strangling Curse. Harry watched for a dazed moment as the orange light sped towards his captors, then focused at once on Kreacher, who was coming towards him.

"Disrupt the ritual!" he shouted. "They're doing something that will taint me and the House of Black if I ever return to it!" Well, he didn't know that for _sure, _but it seemed like a good guess.

Kreacher uttered a small shriek of outrage and waved his hands, shouting. Harry couldn't hear what he'd shouted. Suddenly Edward's chanting had sped up and turned to a roaring thunder, while Hannah turned to deal with the spell that Draco had cast at her. Harry was disappointed but not surprised to see the curse dissolve on the air a few centimeters from her.

Draco squared off against Hannah, wincing only a little as the robe on his back dragged against his wounds. Harry clenched his hand again, on air this time. He had almost forgotten Draco was still wounded. He _had _to get out of here and help him.

Abruptly, the dark room flared with brown and red light. Harry jerked his head away, blinking. When he looked down, he realized that Kreacher had cast some sort of Drying Charm on the blood there, or maybe just a Cleaning Charm. The ritual circle had been entirely scrubbed away.

The magic left coiled in it unlashed into the rest of the room, searching, spinning, for an anchor. Harry saw it grab Kreacher and fling him against the wall.

Then Edward stepped forwards, aiming his wand at Draco's back, and Harry knew his plan as if he had spoken it. He would master the wild magic left over from the ritual and use it to take Draco down. Then they would both turn back to Harry and complete whatever purpose they had been trying to accomplish in the first place.

_No_.

Harry only had one resource right now, and he used it. "Kreacher!" he shouted. "The House of Black is about to die!"

Kreacher immediately popped back to his feet, all the hairs in his ears bristling in outrage. Although he was limping, he still aimed his finger at Edward and shouted, "You are _nots _to be _interferings_ with Master Malfoy!"

This time, it was Edward who went shooting into the opposite wall. Hannah, distracted, glanced over her shoulder, and Draco hit her with something that made her stagger and drop to her knees. Harry waved frantically at Kreacher.

Kreacher hurried across the now-clean floor, still muttering under his breath, and fumbled for a second at the front of the cage. The bars vanished, and Harry bolted free, holding his good hand out for his wand. Sweat broke out on his palms as he Summoned his wand, but it was there in seconds, making its own escape from Edward's pocket.

Hannah was back on her feet, and looked back and forth calmly between them as though determining which enemy she would fight first. Harry knew better than to try and cow her. And he didn't think they could prevent her from hurting one of them if they dueled her, especially with his useless hand and Draco's injuries.

So he flicked his wand and snapped, "_Stupefy._"

The Stunner hit Hannah on her leg, where she didn't have wards; she had counted on the ritual circle to protect her. Only now did she seem to realize that the circle was gone. Her eyes had the chance to widen before she slumped to the floor.

"Bind her, Draco!" Harry shouted, turning back just in time to face Edward as a Stunner came at his own foot. He managed to leap, although his arm swung against his side as he did it and he hissed involuntarily with pain.

Draco turned around and stared at Harry as his own magical ropes writhed around Hannah's body. He saw Harry's arm. He followed Harry's gaze at Edward, and he made an understandable mistake. His face burned a little as he stepped forwards, his own wand raised.

"Stun and bind," Harry snapped, before Draco could get ideas like the Strangling Curse into his head.

"I'm afraid this has been diverting, but I can't let you take my cousin," Edward murmured, bowing. "She may be only my aunt's bastard daughter, but my dear aunt would never forgive me if anything happened to her."

He raised his hand, and then dropped with an odd expression on his face. Kreacher stood behind him, holding a huge iron pot. As he slumped, Harry knew he wasn't the only one gaping at Kreacher.

"Kreacher is never withouts a weapon," Kreacher said, and brandished it at both of them.

Harry nodded, glad that he'd never got Kreacher really angry at him since the end of the war, and immediately set about binding Edward, too. He leaned against Draco when he came up beside him, and Draco touched his useless arm and said nothing.

"I'll make it," Harry said, in response to an eyebrow lift.

Draco nodded, and held onto him as Kreacher vanished with their captives, coming back a few instants later for them. Harry shut his eyes and concentrated on nothing but holding back as they were whirled through darkness. It felt so _good _to be rescued.

He couldn't even complain much when he opened his eyes and noticed it was Grimmauld Place Kreacher had brought them to, instead of Cuthbert's Corner. He was sure Kreacher had masked their presence somehow, and the Ministry had already searched the place, though they'd doubtless left wards to alert them if Harry or Draco showed up. Harry had to hope house-elf magic went deeper than theirs and could keep their wards from functioning.

"Rest," Draco whispered, and pressed his lips to Harry's temple.

Harry retained a few more blurred memories after that, but not enough to be sure who helped him to bed, Kreacher or Draco. They were all of Draco's face.


	7. Seeking Out The Truth

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seven—Seeking Out the Truth_

Harry opened his eyes, and blinked a little. It felt as if he was lying in the middle of cloudy softness, but the last thing he remembered—_really _remembered—was being helped into one of the beds at Grimmauld Place, and none of them were that soft.

He sat up, feeling around on his pillows and blankets. A moment later, he snorted. Someone had cast Softening Charms to make them slip around and enfold him as if they were teddy bears with minds of their own. Harry was tempted to roll over, curl up, and go back to sleep in that endless embrace.

But he had things to do, and above all, he wanted to make sure that neither Draco nor Kreacher had been wounded in the confrontation with the two Montgomerys. He didn't think they had, but neither did he trust his memory in the middle of flying Dark magic.

Harry found a pair of soft velvet shoes, the kind that Kreacher was always trying to get him to wear in the house, next to the bed, and slipped them on. The door opened while he was fumbling with his shirt. Draco stepped into the room and stopped when he saw Harry, closing his eyes for a moment. Harry reached out one hand, and Draco crossed the room and took it, gently resting his cheek in Harry's palm.

"All right, then?" Harry asked in a whisper. It hadn't been meant to be, but Draco looked so wan that the words came out.

"Yes," Draco said. "At least, I took no extra wounds in the battle, and Kreacher's brewed a few Healing Potions for me that have helped soothe the ones that I took when my father cursed me." He looked at Harry and shook his head. "_You _are lucky that I recognized the spells that witch hit you with. The damage might have been permanent, otherwise." He tugged gently on Harry's arm, and Harry turned and stared with blank surprise. Yes, he _had _been using them both to dress himself with, but he hadn't remembered until now that he was wounded.

"Thanks," he whispered.

"I _told _you it was a bad idea for you to go alone," Draco said, and then closed his eyes and embraced Harry. "But we need to worry about other things than that. Do you have any idea what ritual they had you in the middle of?"

"No," Harry said. "But they questioned me first. I think they were hoping I would tell them more than I did."

Draco opened his eyes and nodded. "Well, we have them in custody now, and there'll be more of a chance to question them at our leisure. In the meantime, I think we should have breakfast. Kreacher started cooking it an hour ago. Agreeable to you?" He put his hand on Harry's shoulder and smirked when Harry had to wipe away a bit of drool.

"Much better than Diagon Alley food," Harry said, and let Draco help him to his feet and escort him over to the door of his room. Not that he needed it, but Draco wanted to do it, and needed it more than Harry needed his independence at the moment.

* * *

_He's not crippled. _

If Draco hadn't recognized the effects of the Bone-Shifting Curse in time, Harry might have been, he knew. The curse switched the positions of bones in the arm, or leg, or the chest, and usually the bones insisted on staying in their new places if a certain number of hours passed after the curse was cast.

But he'd recognized it, and Harry was using both hands to scatter salt and peppers on the largest dish of scrambled eggs that Draco had ever seen, placed squarely in front of him. For now, at least, Draco could relax.

They had the Ministry to worry about, and the mess at Cuthbert's Corner, and his parents, and the two wizards they had in custody and had to figure out the best way to interrogate, but right now, nothing was more important than getting food inside Harry.

Kreacher was helpful in the best ways, bustling around and never stopping with his constant, low-voiced grumbling. He had already served Harry two plates of eggs, and two glasses of pumpkin juice. Harry didn't even make a pretext of fetching things for himself, although he'd insisted that he could tuck his napkin into his own shirt. He ate, and ate, and Draco watched him, and planned.

Someone who was willing to use the Bone-Shifting Curse on a captured enemy was someone who didn't really intend that person to survive. For that matter, Draco wasn't sure that getting information was their primary goal, either. The Bone-Shifting Curse was notorious for going wrong and killing the people it was used on sooner than the caster intended.

That left the ritual.

Draco hadn't recognized any of the runes and swirling circles inscribed on the floor around Harry's cage, or the chants they were using, either. He _did _know that dried blood had made up the circle. That eliminated some of the obvious suspects as to what it might have been. And he intended to have more information very soon, now.

Harry finally leaned back, patted his belly, and asked, "How did you find me? Did that blood I left at Malfoy Manor come in useful after all?"

Draco blinked, and said, "No. I got worried about you, so I summoned Kreacher and asked him to take me to you."

Harry blinked in turn, and ended up tossing his head back to chuckle. Draco held back what he could have said, sipping his drink and watching Harry instead. Harry sighed, brought his head down, and said, "Damn. I was so proud of myself for thinking that blood could be used to track me. I bit my hand when I realized I couldn't use any magic in that cage and spilled some blood on the ground. I thought you'd find it if you came to the Manor to look for me."

"Unlike you, I don't rush into risky situations," Draco said.

Harry turned his head to glance at Kreacher, and said nothing.

"Yes, well, some of them I don't have any choice about, because you rushed into them first," Draco said. He didn't know what Harry heard in his voice, but he did raise his hand and slide his fingers through his hair, sighing a little.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, looking up and shaking his head. "I had no idea it would turn out like that. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw the hole in the wards, but by that time, Montgomery was there."

Draco nodded. "And now Montgomery is here," he said, and stood up. He had eaten enough food earlier to keep Kreacher quiet now, although the little elf's scowl promised there would probably be retaliation over the matter of lunch. "Shall we?"

Harry swallowed his tea with no hurry and stood up to follow him. "Edward or Hannah first?"

"Edward," Draco said. "I need some time to let my rage at the woman who tortured you cool."

Harry's hand took his elbow. Draco tensed. If Harry told him that it was no big deal, that Draco needed to calm down, that Harry was fine, or anything else that would make it sound as though it wasn't important that the woman had tortured him, then Draco thought he might turn around and simply hit Harry in the face.

But instead, Harry murmured, "A wise choice. Which room did you have Kreacher put Edward in?"

* * *

It was what Harry thought had been Walburga's old room, a wise choice. There were bars on the windows, probably because Walburga had been paranoid about someone breaking in, and old wards that Harry hadn't managed to disarm still flickered and spat there. They would prevent quick entrance _and _quick exit. It didn't look as though the Aurors had touched the place, only looked in and left the same thick layer of dust lying on the floor.

There was a bed in one corner, covered with a thick, wine-dark quilt, and a single chair, but Kreacher had left the bound Montgomery on the floor. He lifted his head and turned his eyes a little towards them as they waked in. Harry managed to ignore the way his gaze lingered on Draco. Of course Montgomery wasn't affected by the forgetting ritual that the Malfoys had performed on themselves.

If he tried to use that knowledge against Draco, also of course, he would find himself on the wrong end of Harry's wand. But Harry didn't think Montgomery was stupid, just on the opposite side. He wouldn't attack rashly and without a clear advantage.

It became obvious that Draco didn't intend to give him one. He cast a few charms that Harry didn't recognize, but which Montgomery did, if the way he sat up and stared at Draco was any indication.

"The Threshold Charm," Montgomery said. "Such a pity that a young man should know such advanced Dark magic."

"Such a pity that an Auror should," Draco retorted. "Let alone the ritual that you were using to disarm my partner."

* * *

He had made a guess only, because it seemed the most likely explanation for the dried blood as well as for not killing Harry right away, but he saw by Montgomery's sharply-turned head that he had guessed correctly. He smiled at Montgomery. Harry stepped in between them. Draco thought that was more due to him than Montgomery; Draco had probably looked as though he wanted to eat their prisoner, a more or less accurate summary of his feelings.

"What does that mean?" Harry asked Draco.

Draco spoke, but kept his eyes on Montgomery as he did. He doubted that the man, even though forewarned now, would be able to control every telltale little flinch or expression. "It means that he intended to make it impossible for you to use a wand, or defend yourself in any other way. If he had hit you, you couldn't have blocked him, or cast a curse back at him, or even dodged. You would have had to sit there and take it. If they had tortured you again, you couldn't have done anything but suffered."

There was silence, a long, panting silence on Montgomery's part. Harry stepped back with his arms folded and his nose wrinkled up. Draco had to smile at him when he saw that, and fuck Montgomery if he thought the smile was for him. Harry was still so innocent in some ways, so incapable of understanding that other people around him might come up with and then use such Dark rituals. He could use Dark Arts on occasion, but that was different from being corrupt or callous at heart.

"_Why_?" Harry asked at last. "I could see killing me, imprisoning me, taking my wand away, even asking me the questions they did and breaking my arm." Draco flashed Montgomery a look that let him know that Draco understood exactly what his cousin had done with her curse, no matter how Harry might be mischaracterizing it right now. "This—this doesn't make any sense." He turned around and stared at Montgomery.

"You have no reason to ask me that, when _you _are the outlaw, the rebel against the Ministry," Montgomery said. Incredibly, his voice was still controlled. Of course, Draco thought, someone who had chosen to take on him and Harry—or been placed in charge of doing so—wouldn't have an ordinary level of fear. He would have fainted before long if he did, at the mere thought of confronting them. "You are the one who should scrutinize your actions and ask the value of such running as you have done." He leaned forwards. "The Ministry is generous and diverse. We might forgive you if you come back now."

"Says the man who approved an assassin's transfer to our Corps," Draco murmured. "Do you _really _have a leg to stand on?"

Montgomery seemed to have decided that he was better off shutting up about things that his captors might or might not know. He sealed his mouth and watched Draco with eyes that he probably hoped were wise and knowing. Draco sneered at him and said nothing to him for the moment, turning towards Harry.

"Why do you think they would want to keep you helpless?" he asked. "What use would the Ministry have for you then?"

As he had hoped would be the case, Harry made the connection almost immediately. His mouth tightened, and his eyes darted over to Montgomery.

"Someone who was helpless and not visibly wounded," he began, then hesitated.

"They would have healed the Bone-Shifting Curse before they let anyone else see you," Draco confirmed.

"Someone like that, with my reputation, would have to do whatever they asked," Harry said. He stepped forwards, then stopped, slamming his own control on himself. Draco, who had lifted his arm to bar Harry's path to Montgomery, was glad to drop it. It wasn't that he didn't share Harry's desire to obliterate Montgomery, but they could only do it once they had their full evidence.

"Someone will find me, and Hannah," Montgomery said, his eyes steel-plated and unblinking now. "They will miss me, an important part of the Auror Department. You don't know who you're dealing with."

"I think I do," Draco said softly, bending towards him. "You took care that others did, didn't you? You were the one who approved Elder's transfer. Someone else trusted you to do that, or you came up with the plan and persuaded that person to let you put it into operation. You're influential. You wanted to get rid of us. I wouldn't be surprised if you were the one who protected Elder from the consequences of his actions in the past, too. He wasn't a good enough Auror to have got that far on his own.

"Now the only question that remains is whether you were doing it of your own initiative, or whether you were the servant of someone else."

Montgomery gave him a wavering smile. "You have no idea who you're dealing with," he repeated. "And aren't we all the servant of someone or something greater than ourselves? You've done nothing but state obvious truths since you captured me. I might still be inclined to forgive you if you let me go."

"You're going to talk," Draco repeated, and drew the vial of a golden potion from his pocket that he'd asked Kreacher to go to his home and retrieve. It was too dangerous to go himself, when the Ministry would have the place under watch, but at least he was sure they wouldn't have found this, however thoroughly they searched.

Montgomery's face went still. Then he said, "That is not Veritaserum."

Harry blinked at Draco, probably because he couldn't imagine what potion he would use if not the one that would make Montgomery tell the truth. Draco smiled at both of them, and agreed, "No, it isn't."

Montgomery was still. He had too much control to react with begging and pleading when he knew it would do no good, Draco thought. He was reluctantly impressed. He had known Malfoys—at least through portraits—without that much composure.

Draco took a single step forwards, the golden potion in his hand and his eyes fastened on Montgomery's. Harry took a single step forwards, too, getting in the way when Draco would have liked to go straight ahead and tip the potion down their enemy's throat. Draco tilted his head back and did his best to give Harry a weary look.

"What does it do?" Harry asked. He was looking at the potion, not Draco, and that irritated Draco for some reason. He rattled the vial at face level and made Harry look up and at _him_.

"It makes someone tell the truth," Draco said.

"But it's not Veritaserum." Harry folded his arms. "Don't you think we would get in less trouble with Veritaserum?"

Draco laughed. The sound rattled and clicked in his throat, not because he wanted it to, but because that was what came out. "You don't even know what this potion _does _yet, and you can say that?"

"I can say that because I know terror, and that's what's on his face right now," Harry said. So steady, so immovable, one of those things Draco loved and resented about him. "It must be something horrible if it's scaring him that much. So I need to know."

Draco closed his eyes a little. He knew it wouldn't work, but he wanted to shove Harry away, out of the room, and tell him to stay there. Just for once, this didn't need to concern him. He had gone hunting alone without Draco; now Draco could torture people without him.

It was their argument about killing twisted all over again. Harry _would _bring morality into it at the most inconvenient times.

"It forces the truth out of someone," Draco finally said, because nothing had changed, and the last thing they needed was a disruption between them that Montgomery might think he could take advantage of. "It makes it impossible to lie, and it _hurts _them if they try. I think that he deserves at least that much for what he's done to us."

"Hurts them how?"

Draco hadn't expected that question, but a second later, he saw how stupid he had been not to expect it. He leaned back on the wall and took a single, deep breath, so that he wouldn't show any irritation in front of Montgomery. Then he did something better and cast a Muffling Charm at him, so he couldn't hear or see any of the argument. He ought to have done that in the first place, because of course Harry would raise objections.

Draco turned to Harry then and said, "It makes them feel as if they were having their guts ripped out. Any more questions?"

* * *

Harry glanced at Montgomery, and then back at Draco. He had slightly more experience with Montgomery than Draco did, and he knew it was possible that the man could resist Veritaserum. Or else they just couldn't take the time to brew it. Which meant that they probably needed this potion.

But Harry couldn't stand the thought of putting someone through that kind of pain, even if they had hurt him. If Montgomery had threatened Draco directly and in front of Harry, then Harry could have killed him. That was the way he had killed all the twisted who had tried to hurt Draco, in a solid, concentrated blast of hatred and fear and fury.

But Montgomery hadn't done that, and Harry was in a clear frame of mind, sick and shaken at the thought of using that potion on someone. More to the point, sick and shaken at the thought that _Draco _would use that potion on someone. He was crueler than Harry, Darker than Harry, but the torture he had committed during the war hadn't been willing, had just been another way to survive.

Harry didn't think Draco should have to go through that again.

On the other hand, if someone was able to _threaten _Montgomery into telling the truth…

He leaned nearer Draco to be sure that Montgomery couldn't hear them, even though Draco made an impatient move when he did. He was sure that Draco was thinking that the Muffling Charm should have been enough precaution.

But Harry didn't think so, and he whispered, "Would a threat content you? If I could make Montgomery tell the truth because he's afraid of me?"

"There's no threat that would do that," Draco hissed against his cheek. "We couldn't be sure he was telling the truth."

"Use Veritaserum later, if you have to," Harry hissed back. "But I have something that I think might do it."

Draco watched him with bored, hard eyes. A second later, he bowed and extended an ironic hand in Montgomery's direction.

Harry turned around with his heart pounding and said, "Remove the Muffling Charm."

Draco did. Harry knew he was watching his back, and waiting for the moment when Harry's tactic failed.

But he hadn't asked what it was before he gave permission for Harry to do this, and he was still trusting Harry enough to let him have access to Montgomery. That meant a lot to Harry. He walked steadily towards Montgomery, and knelt down in front of him, a safe distance away from Montgomery to avoid kicks or strikes. The man had started to lift his head a little.

_He thinks he's safe from me, _Harry thought.

He leaned in nearer and said, "Do you know what the Deathly Hallows are?"

Montgomery stared at him. Then he said, "A fairy tale."

Harry shook his head. "The Elder Wand. The Resurrection Stone. The Invisibility Cloak." He paused for a silent count of three, and then whispered again, "I have held all three in my hands. I am the Master of Death."

Montgomery's eyes had gone wide with astonishment. Then he said, "But you—everyone knows that you came back alive because your mother made a sacrifice for you."

Harry smiled darkly at him. "Yes, her loving sacrifice protected me the first few times that Voldemort and I met. But he got around that with the ritual he conducted in my fourth year, the ritual that took the blood of an enemy. After that, the protection flowed in his veins, and he couldn't be harmed by it."

From the look on his face, Montgomery had had a magical education complete enough to know about the ritual Voldemort had chosen. And he didn't seem to have thought of Horcruxes. Harry leaned close enough to make Montgomery hold his breath, and began to whisper again, with a brief hope that Draco, listening from behind him but perhaps not able to hear a sound, wouldn't take this the wrong way.

"I _am _the Master of Death. You know about the mastery of the Elder Wand, which I told everyone about in the Great Hall at Hogwarts when I dueled Voldemort. The Invisibility Cloak was an heirloom of my father's; he was descended from the Peverells. And Dumbledore left me the Resurrection Stone. I walked to my death accompanied by the shades of my parents, and my godfather, and Remus Lupin."

He knew the conviction in his voice was doing its own work. Montgomery was looking back and forth between Harry's eyes and the scar on his forehead, and convincing himself, too. The more obscure magical lore Harry could quote, like the Peverells, the more he would think those things _had _to be true.

"Do you know what the Master of Death can do?" Harry asked, and let his voice drop to the nastiest hiss he could without crossing over into Parseltongue. "Pursue you _beyond death_, Edward. You could die, and I could bring you back with the Resurrection Stone and make you serve me. Or I could follow you myself, and drag you back to face more torment. I could bring back the shades of the ones you've killed, and make you face them. I could kill Hannah, and you would see the accusing look on her face every day until the day you hanged yourself to join her. If I was kind enough to let you rest even then, of course. What if I brought you back in company? What if you had to stay together for the rest of your eternities?"

Harry let his voice shake. He had _thought _about it, that was the thing, lying awake in his bed at night after Lionel died, and even earlier, when the grief over Fred and Remus and Tonks became hard to bear. What if he could bring them back? What if the information and legends he had discovered about the Master of Death after the war was accurate, and he could command the dead in all kinds of ways?

"I never did," Harry continued, "because I wanted to be a better person than that. But for you, Edward Montgomery, who was foolish enough to threaten my partner? I would _make an exception. _So you better bloody well do the same thing."

He stared into Montgomery's eyes, and the man cowered before him, back against the wall, pressing away from Harry instead of straining towards him.

And then cracked.

And then began to talk.

Harry sat back with his eyes closed and let Draco absorb most of it. They probably _would _have to check it with Veritaserum later. And there was no guarantee that the same tack would work with Hannah.

For now, though, Harry felt as though he had done his part.


	8. Giving Up

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eight—Giving Up_

"It seems fantastic."

Draco shook his head and leaned back against his chair, then tilted the chair back down before its legs could leave the floor. He'd caught Kreacher's eye, and suddenly it seemed like a much worse idea than it had to tilt the chair all the way back and rest his feet on the table. "I don't think so," he said. "What he told us is only a milder version of what I thought all along."

Harry rolled his eyes. "That there was some grand conspiracy against us, and everyone was collecting evidence against us?"

Draco calmly picked up one of the hard-boiled eggs Kreacher had made and peeled it, flaking the shell into neat little bits in a bowl that Kreacher had also provided. Harry watched him in envy. Draco smiled back and decided not to tell him that he had learned how to do that on his own and with lots of practice, rather than it being an innate skill or something he had learned in his pure-blood childhood.

_Not that I'm particularly proud of my childhood or my parents, anymore._

"That they wanted to get rid of us, because you were more trouble than you were worth." Draco used a spoon to slice off the top of the egg and popped it into his mouth. He sighed as the yolk crumbled exactly the way he wanted, and spent a moment neatly chewing before he continued. "As long as you were partnered with Weasley, they couldn't do much. But then he left, and they gave you Hale, who was a worthless partner, and started assigning you to more dangerous cases."

Harry tilted his own chair back. Kreacher appeared beside him with a small pop and stared. Harry ignored him with the ease of what Draco suddenly felt sure was long practice, and broke his own hard-boiled egg open by tapping it hard against the side of the bowl and then unwinding the shell like a sheet. "Yes, I'm _that _important."

"Sometimes, you really are."

Harry jerked, and nearly sent his chair sprawling onto the floor. Kreacher grabbed the legs and set them back down, patting them and grumbling in a way that made it hard to tell if he was soothing the chair or swearing at Harry. Harry frowned at him, and then at Draco as if that would make more sense, somehow. "Now you sound as though you _believe _the nonsense that Montgomery was saying."

Draco sighed. "It's true that we need to check it with Veritaserum." He was less sure of that than he had been when Harry first approached Montgomery to make his threats, though. Montgomery's eyes had the kind of light that said he believed Harry, and for whatever reason, he seemed to be frightened of what the Master of Death could do to an unhealthy degree. "But it's what he _believed_, I think, even if it's not true. Are you going to deny that the Ministry wanted to get rid of you almost the instant you became an Auror?"

Harry closed his eyes. "It's true that I caused trouble and broke the rules…"

"And that you have this obsession with thinking that you're not important enough to warrant any kind of attention," Draco muttered for him, pouring tea from the pot into his cup. Kreacher appeared beside him, flicked his fingers, and steamed the tea for Draco. Then he patted the side of the pot as though _it _needed soothing, too, and gave Draco a significant look before disappearing.

"Fine," Harry said. "So they assigned me to Hale on purpose. But how does _that _work? How could they know that we wouldn't work well together even before they paired us? I refuse to grant them the power of knowing the future."

Draco put down his teacup. "If you learn to read personalities and past histories well enough, you don't _need _to know the future," he said patiently. "She had the attitudes that she did about non-pure-bloods, and she was a stickler for the rules. Of course they knew that you would clash. Anyone reasonable could have guessed it."

Harry opened his eyes again and looked at him. "Fine. But she caused trouble for herself, too."

Draco snorted. "Weren't you listening to what Montgomery said when he got to that part about the Ministry plotting against you?"

"To be honest, I was trying not to listen." Harry turned his face away and stared at the distant wall of the kitchen as though it would witness, for him, that he hadn't been listening.

Draco paused, then nodded. "I can understand that." Harry still didn't move, and Draco reached out and put his hand on his, gentling his voice as much as he could. "But you see, Hale got in less trouble than you did. She still has a responsible position and a good partner, or at least the option of one." He couldn't picture the cold woman he'd met taking kindly to any partner the Ministry asked her to work with, even one who had the pure blood she favored. "And then they put you with Vane."

Harry jerked a little, but stayed silent. Pleased that he wasn't going to pull away immediately at the mention of his dead partner, Draco drew a breath and went on. "From what I could gather of Montgomery's words, they didn't plan for you and Hale to separate so soon and with so little damage to your reputation. Enough people believed in you that you stayed an Auror. But they were growing more and more frustrated and frightened because you were right in the heart of it all, with the ability to discover corruption and bribery. And you could use the power of your name to cause more scandals than six other Aurors put together."

It took a moment, but Harry nodded. Then he looked at Draco and said, "But they knew Hale and I wouldn't get along. What was the big deal with Lionel? They couldn't have assumed I would fall in love with him and cause problems with him that way. Or that we would run into a case that would kill him. Or even that he would stop trusting me instead of returning my feelings if I fell in love with him."

"No." Draco hesitated again. Then he said, "How much do you know about what Vane did before he was your partner?"

Harry shrugged. "Just that he was with people who treated him well, and people who liked him. He had more friends than I did after Ron left the Aurors. You should have _seen _the number of people who came to his funeral." He stared wistfully into the distance for a minute.

Draco bristled. Even though he knew it was natural that part of Harry wished things had worked out between him and Vane—at the very least, Vane might not have died on their last case together—he didn't want Harry to go back and regret any part of the events that had led up to him being partnered with Draco instead. He squeezed Harry's hand until Harry squeezed back, and then said, "Vane had a gambling problem."

"Huh." Harry blinked at him, not seeming outraged. "What could he have gambled with? I know he didn't get paid more than I did, because he claimed I should have been."

Draco nodded. "But he had a habit of borrowing money from his partners and then not paying it back. Because they were his friends, I don't think most of them minded. But you weren't his friend before you became partners."

"Did they think he would, what, drag me down into the world of corruption and compulsive spending?" Harry shook his head. "He didn't. I never even knew that he gambled until you told me."

"Yes. Well." Draco shifted his weight a little. This was the part that he now knew Harry hadn't been listening to at all, or he would have more of an idea about what was coming next. "The—he was promised a steady source of income if he persuaded you to let him have access to your vaults."

Harry stared at him. Draco thought for a second he would get up and fling off Draco's grip and stalk out of the room. But Harry breathed out instead, and then muttered, "Why would he need the steady income if he could get me to give him the vaults?"

"The physical vaults," Draco said. "Not the Galleons inside them."

Harry blinked. "So they could plant something in Gringotts. Something—illegal enough that even the Chosen One couldn't get away with possessing it."

Draco had to smile. "You _are _a real Auror, however much they doubt it."

* * *

Harry sat there, and wondered what to feel.

He knew what Draco would probably have preferred him to feel. Shock, outrage, and ultimate rejection of Lionel.

But Harry could only see Lionel sanely now, not ultimately reject him. To do that would be to reject the part of him that fell in love with his partners, and that part had led him to Draco, so like hell would Harry throw it away.

For Lionel…

Harry had never sensed that his friendship was less than sincere. He had sensed that uneasiness and lack of trust after Harry had stupidly confessed his crush to Lionel. But Harry had always thought that came from Lionel's fear that Harry had never liked him, only had a crush on him, and his not being able to return the feelings. It was annoying for both of them, but it wasn't fatal.

_He must have been spectacularly bad at what they asked him to do, _Harry decided. He and Lionel had worked together for months, and Lionel had never asked him a single question about the vaults or tried to nudge Harry into giving him access. Even thinking about it now, in hindsight and with the motivation laid stark and bare before him, Harry couldn't see any motion Lionel had made that would lead him closer to his goal.

He shook his head and looked up at Draco. "It's good to know, I suppose," he said quietly. "Since it's about the Ministry's pattern of mistreatment of its Aurors and the way they feared me even before I did anything. But it really doesn't affect me, does it? I mean, he never succeeded."

Draco caught his breath, and his face turned stern. "But now you know what he was trying to _do_."

"Tried to do, not succeed," Harry said, and kept his gaze on Draco's eyes. He knew very well what Draco hoped he would get out of this, and that was a personal motivation different from recognizing that the Ministry had conspired against him. "I still think of Lionel as a partner. I'll regret the way he died for a long time. It doesn't mean that I love him more than you, or that I wish I could stop having you as a partner and have him instead. I would never wish that, especially not now that I know you."

Draco stared at him for a few minutes. Then he turned away and drove one fist into the table. Even Kreacher appearing and staring at him didn't seem to affect him.

"What," Harry said, not making it a question, and picked up his cup. It was cold, but a quick flick of his wand started the warmth moving in the liquid again. Harry sipped it and watched Draco. Draco wasn't stalking back and forth across the kitchen, but his body was as whipcord-tight as if he wanted to.

"You always excuse everyone, no matter what they do," Draco whispered harshly, his head still turned away. "Except your friends and me, who you hold to a higher standard. Why? Why do your enemies get a pass and we don't?"

Harry put down his teacup. "What do you think I haven't forgiven you for that I should? Yes, we still have arguments, but—"

"You were disgusted when I wanted to use that potion on Montgomery." Draco turned around and looked at him again, both palms flat on the table now. He was shaking with the effort it took him not to slam down another fist, Harry thought. Well, he couldn't do anything about that but listen. That was the important part, anyway, what he had asked Draco that Draco thought he hadn't forgiven. "I saw you. Don't deny it. You're disgusted any time I make a move towards ridding the world of enemies that hurt us."

_Oh_. Harry sighed. "I wasn't thinking of him being hurt when you used that potion," he said. "I was thinking of you."

Draco's eyes narrowed until their grey color was almost lost in his face and he looked frighteningly similar to Lucius. "I assure you, I had no plans to _drink _it."

"I know," Harry said helplessly. Fuck, he hadn't ever thought Draco could mistake his intentions this badly, enough to think that Harry valued Montgomery more than him, but it made perfect sense now that Draco was saying he thought Harry forgave his enemies too easily. "What I mean is, you had to torture people during the war. You've had to do it since, but never in ways that—I wanted to spare you from having bad memories. From having doubts later."

Draco stood still. "So even sparing your enemies, you say, is about making me feel better," he said at last, in a colorless voice.

"Not always," Harry said. "But that time, it was."

"I would have been _fine _if I used the potion against him," Draco said. "I'll be fine after I use whatever curse I can come up with against Hannah. I haven't thought of anything awful enough yet to pay her back for the Bone-Shifting Curse."

"I don't want you to do that," Harry said, and folded his hands on the table in front of him and studied his nails so that he wouldn't have to study Draco's increasingly furious face.

"Why?" Draco said. His voice was low enough to sound like a sphinx's growl. "If you try to tell me that she doesn't deserve to be tortured—"

"She doesn't _deserve _to, in the same way no one does," Harry snapped, looking up because he had to. "That doesn't mean she doesn't deserve punishment, but torture is useless for getting confessions, you know that."

"But not in making me feel better."

Harry sighed in relief. Draco had handed him the path he needed to take, though Harry doubted it had been on purpose. "I'm the one she hurt. Don't you think that I'm the one who needs to feel better, and the one who should get to choose the vengeance we take on her?"

Draco turned his back and folded his arms. Harry let his lips quirk into a smile because no one was looking except Kreacher, who wouldn't tell on him, and once again picked up his tea and cast a Warming Charm on it.

"You have no idea how she made me feel," Draco said sullenly, without looking back.

"That's true," Harry said. "But I know exactly how she made _me _feel, since I experienced the pain of the Bone-Shifting Curse from inside my body." He let his voice harden as Draco just stood there looking mulish. "I think I should be able to choose my own punishment, Draco. Let me do it."

Draco turned around and looked at him with his heart in his eyes. Harry reached across the table, and Draco took his hand.

"You just always give your enemies so much less than they deserve," Draco said miserably. "I wanted to make her suffer."

"I'm going to make her suffer," Harry said neutrally.

"You can't know that threatening her with the Master of Death thing will work the way it did for her cousin."

Harry nodded. "I know." _But there's something else I can do._

* * *

When they came into the room where Kreacher had chosen to put Hannah, Draco hung back. It made sense that Harry would be more interested in causing pain to someone who had actually hurt him, and for him to do that, he needed to take the lead from the beginning and show that he was serious, that he meant business.

If it turned out that this was too serious for him, though, and he faltered, Draco would be there like a tidal wave to sweep everything else away and do what needed to be done. He touched his wand.

Harry walked in normally enough. Hannah, in the middle of bindings like the ones that Kreacher had left on her cousin, paused and looked up at them. Her face was so smooth, so neutral, that Draco wanted to curse her just to hear her make a noise.

Harry drew his wand. Draco remained where he was, raising his eyebrows. He hadn't expected this, not so soon, but possibly Harry _had _come up with a spell that matched his morals and would still cause pain.

It had better be _enough _pain, that was all.

Harry touched the wand to his arm, and whispered a Cutting Charm. Draco blinked as blood sprang into being at the contact point. Harry took the blood into his hand and looked at it for a second, rather than at Hannah. She was leaning forwards as if she wanted to see better, but not showing fear.

_Not yet, _Draco noted, as Harry looked up and fixed her with a freezing glare that made her sit up and pay attention.

Harry flung the blood into the air, his wand flicking fast. He chanted, a spell that Draco didn't recognize, and the blood slowed and began to loop instead of splattering. It landed in a circle around Hannah, and Harry smiled sweetly at her and gathered more blood from his arm.

"I'll have to cast charms to make it dry faster," he said. "But that won't be much of a problem, not when I think about what you wanted to do to me."

Hannah seemed to stop breathing. Draco wanted to rise on his toes, but that might make her look in his direction and think that he hadn't expected this, which was an impression he must avoid making.

Was Harry really going to put her in the middle of the ritual that would have disarmed him, that in turn would make her helpless? But he would need another person for that, and more knowledge of the dried blood swirls and runes than he had shown, and much more time—

Hannah seemed to reach that conclusion at the same time, because she leaned back in her bonds and shook her head. "You cannot make me helpless," she said.

Harry lashed and spun out, launching a kick from the hip. It hit Hannah in the chest, knocking the breath out of her, if not wounding her, and she went sprawling. Her hair dipped into the blood Harry had shed, ruining the perfection of the circle. Draco couldn't help clucking his tongue a little in distress.

Harry stooped over Hannah, showed her the wet blood he had gathered, and made a stripe down the middle of her nose. "I don't need to make you helpless _that _way," he said. "You may have heard of something called the Puppet Ritual."

Hannah went still, staring at Harry. Then she said, "That's only a legend."

If so, it was a legend that Draco had never heard. He was ransacking his memory when Harry spoke, a hard, gloating tone in his voice that Draco had never heard, either. "I discovered it in one of the books in the library here. Do you know where we are? The old _Black _family home."

Hannah's face flushed, then turned pale. Harry nodded and painted a stripe of blood across the back of her left hand, flipping her over to do it, while he continued explaining in a calm voice. "Yes. Their library is infamous, and they have all sorts of Dark Arts books here. And in one of them is how to perform a blood ritual to make another person into your puppet." His voice sank into a whisper. "Think of it. It means that you'll be locked behind your eyes, unable to stop anything you do, fully conscious of it, unlike with the Imperius Curse, which lets you drift, but _I _will be in control. I can make you give yourself up. I can make you kill, rape, be raped, hurt others, be hurt, serve any cause I want, and you can do _nothing_."

"That doesn't exist," Hannah whispered. "A ritual like that would have been used by someone before now, I would know—"

Harry dashed his hair back from his forehead and showed his scar. "And you know all about the magical power inherent in this, I suppose?" he asked. "And you're a Parselmouth?" He fixed his eyes on Hannah's, half-closed, and began to hiss. Draco, his back one prickling mass of gooseflesh, had no idea what he was saying, and he supposed that he didn't really want to know, either.

Hannah tensed in her bonds, but lay still, staring at Harry as if she might have a chance of impressing him if she kept still.

Harry smiled at her, and leaped back, laughing quietly. He cast the circle around Hannah again, this time sprawling out in a loop that encompassed her hair, and dried it with a Drying Charm. Then he squeezed the heel of his palm to get more blood out.

"You must want a price," Hannah blurted. "Or you would have silenced me and blinded me and completed the ritual without telling me anything."

Harry shrugged and looked down at her with the kind of cold, calculating gaze that Draco had sometimes dreamed about him having, but, of course, not one that he would actually have most of the time. "I could find out what you know from the Puppet Ritual, but sometimes, memories are destroyed when the puppetmaster first enters the mind. There's the slight chance that I would destroy your memories of stalking me, collecting information on me, and coming up with that ritual to disarm me, especially since they're recent. I might take the chance on you telling them to me instead. _Might_. If I had some guarantee that you were telling the truth."

"You'll have it," Hannah said. Her wrists were flexing behind her back, Draco saw. He didn't think she was actually in a panic, but Harry had convinced her, and she wanted to survive. She saw this as a trade she had to make in order to live. In that, she seemed more practical to Draco than her cousin, who had tried to spout Ministry doctrine until Harry broke him.

"You will?" Harry asked. "And you'll tell the truth? Of course we'll check with Veritaserum later, but it would be tiresome to find out that you'd lied."

"I will tell the truth."

Harry backed away from her, face set in a sneer. "Very well. Tell me why the Ministry was so convinced from the beginning that I was a threat, because I caused minor trouble on a few cases. Other Aurors have done so and got away with it."

Hannah closed her eyes and swallowed, her throat bobbing. "You weren't a threat until you developed that gift for visions," she whispered. "Some people recognized that you had a flaw, and that meant you could become a twisted. With at least the face of the Boy-Who-Lived, you could become immensely powerful before someone moved against you. And what do we do with twisted? We put them down."

Harry's face rippled, and then settled into a grim expression that Draco feared instinctively. He knelt down beside Hannah, his hand resting on her throat. "You had best tell me everything," he whispered.

And Hannah did.


	9. Changing Definitions

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nine—Changing Definitions_

"I _told _you that it was the Ministry's definition of twisted that was causing all the trouble."

Draco folded his arms and said nothing. Probably because he _could _say nothing, Harry thought, as he paced back and forth through the kitchen in front of Draco. He knew Harry was right, and although he might not agree with it right now, he would have no choice but to come to agree in the future.

Harry swung around and braced himself against a counter. He thought Kreacher would pop up and frown at him, but he didn't. Which was just as well, because Harry's thoughts raced and clashed through his head, and he was in no mood to be treated like he was a brain-deficient child, the way Draco had tended to react in the past when Harry argued that the Ministry's treatment of twisted was wrong.

"They thought I was one simply because I had a flaw and a track record of not following the rules," Harry told Draco as he went back to pacing. "_Their _rules, remember. They never thought you were one, although you had a flaw, too. And Jenkins and Warren don't seem like the most obedient Aurors to me, but the Ministry never set out to destroy them the way they did me."

Draco stirred at last, for almost the first time since they had come down to the kitchen after Hannah's confession. "I'm glad to see that you appreciate the danger you're in, at least," he told the ceiling, tilting his head back. "That gives me hope for the future."

"But not for right now."

Draco shot him a startled glance. Harry smiled grimly back at him. "I'm more adept at reading your inflections than your words by now," he said.

Draco paused once, then nodded. "It's good that you believe the Ministry _was _targeting you, and unfairly," he said. "That means that you might fight them in the future, if they try to do it again."

"But you don't think it's their definition of twisted that causes the problems," Harry said, and stalked towards the table, until he stood in front of Draco with his arms folded and shaking himself. "Why not?"

Draco eyed him. "Because they couldn't have categorized you as twisted by following that definition, which you say is too restrictive," he replied. "We were the ones to discover that not all twisted fit all five standards the Ministry proposed, not the rest of the Aurors. I don't think they really believed that you were mad and Dark. It was a convenient excuse to get rid of you, nothing more. Perhaps it was even what Hannah believed to be the truth, nothing more. You know that torture is unreliable in forcing confessions."

"And in distinguishing between what someone believes is the truth and what the actual truth is," Harry said, nodding. "Just like Veritaserum. I know," he added, watching Draco's eyebrows rise in the meantime. "And yes, I can call what I did torture, because it was. It was only acceptable to me because it left mental scars instead of physical ones."

Draco leaned forwards. "And because you did it, instead of me."

"Of course." Harry folded his arms more tightly, wondering where Draco was going with _this _line of questioning.

"Tell me how the Ministry could categorize you under the definition of twisted they use," Draco said, changing the subject. Harry grinned. He thought he had got good at telling when Draco did that because he wanted to and when he did it because he couldn't think of any counters to the argument that Harry had brought up. This was the latter.

"Because I practice Dark Arts," Harry said. "Because I have a flaw. Because I have no Healing skills, and I'm so inimical to Healers that they banned me from St. Mungo's."

Draco stared incredulously at him. "That had everything to do with Healers' tempers, and nothing to do with your magic."

"But it makes a convenient excuse, don't you think?" Harry asked, cocking his head whimsically. "And especially for people who want to think that there's something especially wrong with me, something that they didn't detect before, but now _know _about."

Draco said nothing. His frown only grew more pronounced, though. Harry leaned forwards and continued counting off on his fingers. "I have to have a symbol." He pushed his fringe back, revealing the scar.

"But everyone knows that came from the Killing Curse…" Draco trailed off.

Harry shrugged. "You've read the files as well as I have. You know that sometimes the symbols the twisted of the past adopted were neutral in and of themselves, without evil meaning before they made them so."

Draco said nothing, but kept his eyes fastened on Harry.

"And as for the followers, I have my devoted friends, and I've corrupted you, a fine Auror." Harry had to smile as he watched Draco nearly start to his feet in indignation. "I'm just saying what they would say."

Draco's nostrils flared, but he nodded. "Then I suppose there are people in the Ministry hierarchy who might believe it," he said. "What matters is whether Hannah and her immediate superiors did."

"Not even that," Harry said. "They could use it as an excuse to get rid of me, or they might really believe it and be horrified that the Ministry was sheltering a twisted—the way that more of them would have been about Ernhardt becoming Head Auror, if they'd thought of it in those terms and not in terms of the embarrassment that it brought the Ministry." He turned away and went to make a cup of tea. He needed _some _kind of movement to calm the excitement that continually broiled through him. "It would work on all the levels. And someone probably believed it about me the first minute I had the visions."

"Why assign you to work in the Socrates Corps, though, hunting twisted?" Draco's eyes were almost painful on the nape of his neck. "There must be _someone _who would think that you had loyalty, of a sort, to your own kind."

"Why?" Harry asked, looking over his shoulder. "Ernhardt didn't. They knew that most twisted didn't cooperate and work together. As we learned more about people like Healer Alto, who other twisted kept attacking, they would think more and more that I could be a useful weapon to hunt down other mad Dark wizards, as long as my madness was controllable."

Draco leaned back and closed his eyes. Harry nodded to him as he began to boil water. "I don't think it was admirable," he said. "But it fits in with what we learned about Ernhardt. Ernhardt and the other people who wanted me gone, and then you gone once you fitted in with my cases instead of messing them up, were working for the same goal even if they didn't have the same motives. Ernhardt wanted us dead because we might have been able to identify him. The others wanted me gone because I was dangerous and embarrassing."

"But me?" Draco whispered. "They could only have wanted me gone once they saw how effective we were as a team. Why did they assign me to you in the first place?"

Hannah had told them that, and Harry could only surmise that Draco was taking some time to face it because it was so harsh. He hesitated one more time, and then said, "Because you were going to be a sacrifice. Someone without close family anymore, whose partner had just died, but who was rules-bound enough, they thought, to object if I did something wrong. Or you would draw me in—I'm sure they knew how attached I got to my partners, how devastated I was by Lionel's death—and then leave me. If you failed, it was no great loss. If you tripped me up, it was what they wanted." He turned back towards Draco and held out his hands to him. "The one thing they never anticipated was that you would fall in love with me back."

* * *

Draco took a deep breath, and when he let it in, it seemed to him as though he was absorbing, instead of air, all Harry's suspicions and arguments and attempts to convince him about the twisted. They settled inside him, and they seemed more and more solid now, building muscles and bones of their own, a second skeleton inside his.

But once they were there, Draco had to wonder just what the _hell _they were going to do next. So he asked.

"If the whole Ministry is against us," he said, and cursed himself a little as his voice wavered, "the whole Auror Department, then what are we going to _do_? How do you expect me, or you, or us, to do anything about them?"

Harry grabbed his hands and smiled at him. Draco swallowed. Of course he had wanted to see that sun glowing in Harry's eyes; of course he had wanted him to move around the kitchen and gesture with that much energy. It made sense that it would hearten him to see Harry turning against his enemies at last.

But the energy awed him and worried him at the same time. It made him wonder what Harry would do next, and whether he would contrive to sweep Draco away with him while he did it.

"There are a few allies of ours in the Ministry," Harry whispered. "Warren and Jenkins. And not all the Aurors can believe the same thing, or even know about it. There are still people who would support me in other Departments if they knew about it. I have to believe that."

"Support _us_," Draco reminded him. Even if the main force of the Ministry's plan to destroy Harry had been directed against Harry, Draco was still angry that he had been used as a sacrifice. An appendage to the main plan, expendable, because they thought that way they could control Harry.

"Of course," Harry said, with a faint smile and a bob of his head. "And what we do is make this public, along with evidence of Ernhardt's activities. I don't think we can make the Ministry fall, but we can do tons of things to diminish the public confidence in the Aurors. They'll either have to admit the truth and clean out their ranks, or bribe us with something—anything we want—to keep quiet."

Draco studied him warily. Frankly, it sounded like too practical a plan for Harry. "And how does that connect to changing their definition of twisted?"

"Because we're going to talk about that, too," Harry said. "And the people we've been killing, the people who should have been arrested and tried the way that other Dark wizards were. I don't think that the Ministry established the Socrates Corps out of the goodness of their hearts. I think they established it because they were frightened of Voldemort and wanted to make sure that no one like him could ever gain power again."

Draco blinked. "That seems like a good idea to me."

"But they did it by killing people whose only crime was that they resembled him a little," Harry snarled. "In fact, I _know _that he wasn't insane when he was young, and he didn't go insane just because he studied the Dark Arts. It was for another reason." Draco looked at him, but Harry turned away and stared at the kitchen table, although he kept hold of Draco's hands. "And would you say that Healer Alto was insane?"

Draco grimaced and shook his head. "Arguably not Alexander, either. He at least had a plan that made sense, although it was a stupid one."

Harry nodded. "And not all the people affected by his globes were going insane, either, or fit into the other categories that the Ministry defines. They just had the wandless magic. I don't—things have to _change, _Draco. I think things are only going to change if someone makes the public announcement about the Socrates Corps and how much things _suck _the way they are now. That someone has to be us. We're the only ones with any compelling reason to."

"All right," Draco said. "But you keep talking about talking. You haven't said how we're going to do it, or why the public would believe us and not the lies that the Ministry are immediately going to tell to counter us."

"That's easy enough," Harry said, staring at Draco as if he had babbled nonsense. "We make a public display of our Pensieve memories, as large as we can, projected on a screen like in a Muggle telly."

Draco folded his arms, breaking the hold that Harry had on his hands. He knew what a telly was, and the notion just made him disapprove further. This was Harry's grand plan? Doing something that would make most people who heard about it think of Muggle devices?

"Where and how are you going to set this up?" he demanded. "What could we do in public that the Ministry couldn't immediately block and destroy?"

"We need to think about how we're going to get the memories to people who aren't there," Harry said. "But we're going to do it at the Ministry itself, of course. That's the only place we could."

"Go back into the heart of enemy power," Draco echoed dazedly.

"It _shouldn't _be the heart of enemy power." Harry was leaning forwards again, and his eyes were dazzling with their fire. "It should be a servant of the public, the way that Aurors are supposedly taught to be, not a servant of a few corrupt people who are afraid that they might have to change the way they do things. We're going to change that, Draco. We're going to get rid of the corruption and move the Ministry back to the side it should be on."

Draco stood up and took a deep breath. "All right, Harry. But you _have _to know that this isn't only going to be hard, it's going to be impossible. People have tried to cleanse the Ministry of bribery and corruption before, and it didn't work."

"That's because they were interested in too many different Departments, and too many different kinds," Harry said firmly. "I only want to get rid of the particular strain in the Aurors that says they can sacrifice anyone they like, that it's better than giving trials to people who might not be insane by conventional definitions."

"That would mean we could be tried for murder." Draco felt as though he stood on a high cliff looking down over the valley of Harry's ambitions, and he didn't really like the picture that appeared.

"It _would _mean that." Harry inclined his head. "But if we don't do something like this, then everything else is going to fall apart. Your parents will get away with what they did to you. We'll be hunted by the Ministry until we slip up or they seize us or we flee the country. And we'll be tried with murder that way, too. I think they're going to try and charge us with Ernhardt's murder."

Draco wrapped his arms around himself. Harry was there in seconds, taking his hands back and looking into Draco's eyes so appealingly that Draco had to bite his lip savagely so he wouldn't melt.

"This is the way things have to end," Harry whispered. "Either with truth, or continuing on with the Ministry's lies. I think, either way, that we're going to be on trial. At least this way, it's going to be a trial that we chose, and we can represent the murder as a condition of our jobs. And self-defense, in the case of Ernhardt. The Ministry was so incompetent that they didn't even realize they had a mad wizard for a Head Auror. We can fight with that, cast doubt on their ability to recognize other twisted, too."

Draco gave a light snort and shoved Harry a little. "_You _care more about saving future victims than the chance to clear our names. Don't lie."

"Well, I might, at that," Harry said, and gave him a winsome little smile. "But only because I think I'm _right _when I say that we'll probably end up on trial no matter what happens."

Draco shut his eyes. He didn't really need more proof that he was important to Harry, did he? Only proof that he was more important than his enemies. And sometimes he still doubted that, especially now, with the way that Harry seemed to argue they should risk their lives for an abstract moral principle.

"I don't really want my job as an Auror back," Draco said, stroking the back of Harry's hands with his thumbs. "Do you?"

No response, so Draco had to open his eyes to see the headshake or the nod. Harry was studying him with a fierce gaze.

"You don't want the job back that you sacrificed your family over?" Harry asked. "That you gave up so much to have? That you were forced out of unfairly? That they wanted to sacrifice you over because you were a good Auror instead of the sacrifice and the stumbling block they _wanted _you to be?"

It was difficult to breathe. Draco backed away from Harry and wrapped his arms around himself again. He knew he wasn't alone, knew he hadn't been from the time that Harry had fully accepted Draco as his partner in all senses, but Harry's words felt as though he had been pushed out into the snow on a high peak.

"I would want to be an Auror again if it was possible for the Department not to be corrupt," Draco said finally, bowing his head. "I don't really believe that's possible. Not _really_. Do you?" he added, lifting his head and scowling at Harry.

Harry just met him with another one of those brilliant, disarming smiles. "That's what I think we should do," he said. "Challenge the Ministry and get rid of that strain of corruption. If anyone can do it, we can."

"You don't have any solid plans," Draco told him flatly, pushing the hair out of his own eyes. "You _don't. Wanting_ to present everything in front of the Ministry and anyone else who wants to attend doesn't mean we can _do _it."

"But we have life and determination and the truth, now," Harry said. "And that means we can make solid plans. And I know you'll add to and refine them, and give me criticism on the parts that are unworkable." He reached out for Draco's hands again, and scowl as Draco might, he was powerless to stop him. "Besides, I thought of one other ally we have in the Ministry besides Warren and Jenkins."

"One?" Draco muttered dryly. "What a windfall. Who?"

"Mind-Healer Estillo."

Draco closed his eyes. "Yes, she's an ally," he said. "And so might some of the other Mind-Healers be, if you could convince them that what they might be asked to do otherwise would go against their Healers' oaths. That doesn't make them the same thing as _actual _allies, people who have already agreed to defend us. Do you—Harry, do you actually understand this, or are you so used to setting off against the world with a few people to help you that you think it's possible all the time?"

* * *

Harry could feel a grin tugging at his lips, and it was probably a good thing that Draco wasn't actually looking at him right now, or he would explode.

"Some of that," he admitted. "But, Draco, watch." He gestured with his wand, but waited to complete the motion until Draco had opened his eyes and turned his head reluctantly in the direction that Harry wanted him to face. Then Harry gestured sharply and whispered, "_Ostendo memoriam._"

The air swirled and tightened near the kitchen counters. Kreacher appeared behind it, hands spread wide as though to protect the Black pots and pans from any dangerous nonsense that Harry might want to inflict on them. Harry ignored that. There was no way that Kreacher's presence there would disrupt the spell.

The air ended up turning silver. No credit to Harry for that inspiration, he thought; he was just basing it on the color that Dudley's telly sometimes turned in the seconds before an image showed up.

On the screen formed his face and Draco's, and the Black kitchen. And Draco began to speak the first words of their argument, even as the spell pulled back to show more and more, and make it clear that the scene was whole, like a Pensieve memory.

Draco was still and silent. Harry glanced at him and found him watching the screen as though he hadn't lived through it. Harry decided that he could do with the same thing, if only because he didn't know which details Draco would argue about the second time through, and watched it, too.

The memory ended as Harry waited with his wand up for Draco to open his eyes. Draco blew out sharply through his nose and turned to study Harry. "All right," he said. "But that works when it's a private scene that we both know is real. What happens when we have to show it to a huge group of people, and someone is trying to disrupt it in the meantime?"

"That's where the Mind-Healers come in." Harry waited patiently for the obvious question, and Draco finally rolled his eyes and gave in, although Harry could see his fingers writhing like impatient spiders beneath the sleeve of his robe as he did so.

"Right. When did you come up with this plan? A while ago, and you're only now deigning to explain it to me?"

"Just now," Harry had to admit. "When you started asking about what allies we could have when we faced the Ministry, and I came up with this. The Mind-Healers can enter someone's mind with permission, you know."

Draco's face was a study that Harry was glad he had lived to see. "And you think our enemies are going to let them in _willingly_?"

"No," Harry said. "But they can also enter minds without permission. And while most people in the Ministry are watching these memories of our battles with Ernhardt and your parents and the ritual the Montgomerys tried to put me through, the Mind-Healers are going to be searching out the minds of those people who try to cast the spells to stop it. And entering them. And finding out the truth."

"What truth?" Draco was practically trembling in place like an enraged scorpion now, his arms folded and his foot tapping. "What kind of truth do you expect to find, other than that they hate the two of us and want us dead?"

"I think there are probably a lot of people in the Ministry who would qualify as potential twisted," Harry said quietly. "A lot of people with flaws. Think about it. All of us in the Socrates Corps have flaws—except maybe Latham, who died before we got to know him—and we just all happen to be there? No. I think the decisive factor that involved them pushing us into the Socrates Corps was that we faced people—or creatures—that could be explained by the twisted definition, and we had to be encouraged to think of them as Dark, insane wizards. Otherwise, we might have talked about it inconveniently, and discovered that lots of people have gifts of wandless magic. People with flaws are more common than people who fit the twisted definition, I'd bet. A _lot _more common. Think of the way that Alexander created those globes that were supposed to take flaws away and prevent people from becoming twisted. He didn't have a few random targets. He had a lot of people he wanted to scatter them to.

"This is—I think that the twisted definition is a useful bit of insurance, something politically motivated after Voldemort came along, but once they'd written it, a lot of wizards in the Ministry started to realize that it could be applied to _them_, too, unless all five standards were pretty strictly applied. But Aurors who came in contact with twisted, as opposed to Aurors who had flaws, were pretty rare. They could push them into the Socrates Corps when they did see something that might have started them thinking, and teach them about twisted, and force them to think that, instead of a level of magic spread throughout the wizarding population of Great Britain, this is just something that only happens to a select number of people. Only a few wizards study the Dark Arts and go insane. Only a few people have a flaw _and _a symbol _and _companions _and _all the rest of it." He met Draco's gaze evenly. "But lots of people have a flaw."

Draco was blinking, his mouth open, his eyes soft and dazed. Then he said, "What—what made you think of this?"

"Because once I started paying attention, I noticed things," Harry said grimly. "Your mother has a flaw. Montgomery has one, I think. _Elder _had one. They're just too common, Draco. They might go unnoticed as long as you didn't know what you were looking for, but once you do? They're everywhere. But you're not mad despite having one, and neither am I, and neither is Warren, and neither is Jenkins. I'd call Elder mad, but because he was a Light fanatic, not because of Dark magic. This goes a lot deeper than just Ministry dislike of me, I think."

He took a step forwards, never yielding Draco's eyes. "I want to stop it, and make them see that they shouldn't be persecuting people who have flaws in an attempt to stop the public from wondering who in the Ministry hierarchy has them. That's what I want to change, and show. That will prevent them from hurting us, but also prevent people like Ernhardt from ever getting into a responsible position again, if we know what to _really _look for. Will you help me?"


	10. News From the Outside

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Ten—News From the Outside_

"Masters Harry and Draco! There is being a letter."

Harry woke slowly, stretching from the knuckles of his fingers to the tips of his toenails. He lay in bed with Draco, in the large room that Draco had insisted they move to because the bed Harry had lain in while recovering wasn't big enough for the two of them. And he and Draco had spent more than enough time in that bed last night, together, to make him feel wonderful.

"Masters!"

Harry started and turned his head. Even though Kreacher's voice had woken him from the deep sleep he'd settled into after their lovemaking, he hadn't paid much attention to what it actually _said._ The number of people who would send them letters right now, and the number of letters that could actually find them, was extremely small.

"Let me see it, Kreacher," he said, and Kreacher stretched out to put the letter in his hand. The house-elf was looking a little doubtfully at Draco's back. Draco lay curled up facing the wall, his hands on the pillow. Harry caught Kreacher's eye and smiled. "He's fine. Just tired."

Kreacher immediately looked determined enough to frighten an army. "Then Kreacher will be making him a huge breakfastses!" he declared, and vanished. Harry could hear banging from the kitchen a minute later.

Beside him, Draco grumbled and settled deeper into sleep. Harry let one hand rest on his shoulder as he took up his wand and cast the required number of spells to determine any hexes or curses on the letter, although the chance that Kreacher wouldn't have detected such curses, or that the house would have let the owl past the wards with a letter like that, was probably as small as the number of people who would send it in the first place.

The letter was clear. Harry cracked the wax seal, a thick one bearing an imprint of a swan and a harp that he didn't recognize, and opened it.

_H.,_

_I have found some help. Apparently one of the Aurors who was sacked two years ago when they did that huge "cleanout" of the Department was one who had suspicions of E. and tried in vain to get other people to listen to her. Her name is Diane Athright. She's still bitter about the loss of her job and willing to aid us. Meet us by the sign of the black dog no later than midnight tonight. It shouldn't be a long journey for you._

_S._

Harry rubbed his forehead. He thought it was too early in the morning for codes and games, but it wasn't like he had a lot of choice.

"Here," Draco's voice said, rough with sleep, and he reached over Harry's shoulder to grab the letter. Harry yielded it with a relieved little laugh, shaking his head.

"It's ridiculous," he said, lying back with his head on the pillow. "But I can't make out that code, even though I knew it was one we agreed to."

"Well, your first name begins with an H," Draco started.

Harry poked him in the ribs with an elbow, which took away any breath that he had for joking. Draco choked, spluttered, and coughed, and went on in a more solemn tone. "E is Ernhardt, of course. And S is Simone, Jenkins's first name."

Harry scowled. "She doesn't fit her name." For him, a Simone was a delicate person, a Frenchwoman, probably, with long hair and a fragile face. Jenkins had short hair, and nothing else about her fit his mental image, either.

"I'm sure she's devastated," Draco said, his voice dry enough to make Harry want some water. He scanned the letter again. "And the sign of the black dog is clear enough. The place where those dark dogs first appeared as part of the wards around Cuthbert's Corner. She still thinks we're there, so it would be no journey for us."

"It won't be a journey for us as it is," Harry said reluctantly. It wouldn't take them long to Apparate to Cuthbert's Corner, and perhaps five minutes to walk along the cliff to the place where they had first encountered the dark dogs. "But what are we going to do with Hannah and Montgomery in the meantime?"

"Ask Kreacher to take them up to the attic and care for them there." Draco placed a hand on Harry's shoulder, gently rubbing. "It's the most secure place in the house, even if the Aurors do come back and search. And I asked Kreacher a few questions yesterday, before you woke up, about his ties to this place. It's the oldest and strongest house-elf magic there is, given how many years he spent serving the Blacks. A dozen Aurors could tromp through here and never find someone he's hidden."

Harry closed his eyes and leaned into the rubbing. "What would I do without you?" he muttered.

"Die, each case, several times over," Draco said promptly. "Or be disarmed and helpless in the middle of a dried blood ritual, by now." His voice lowered suggestively, and Harry blinked and looked at him. Draco was smiling at him, his hand trailing over the sheet. "What do you think of one more time, before we go?"

Harry willingly opened his arms to him, and Draco climbed on top of him and kissed him as if he was a Dementor and could draw Harry's soul out that way. Harry tried to murmur to him that Draco had had his soul long since and could do anything he liked with it, but Draco was a little too focused on the kissing to notice.

And a second later, so was Harry.

* * *

_This might be the last time. _

Draco had thought that before, some of the moments they spent in bed before engaging in the most dangerous part of a case. But he had never thought it with the urgency that it had this time, striking and stinging through him like the crack of a whip.

He made the urgency all the more reason to be tender with Harry, though, to fasten his lips on Harry's and suck on them instead of kissing once and moving on, to trace his fingers up and down over the old scars on Harry's back and turn Harry over so he could reach them more easily. Harry sighed when he did, lowering his chin to rest on his hands and shutting his eyes. Draco stroked and stroked, and Harry made a heavy purring sound. Draco might have thought he was getting ready to go back to sleep, but he knew Harry better than that.

_This might be the last time._

What Harry had said made sense, and it even made sense that some people in the Ministry besides Jenkins and Warren might be able to help them, but that didn't mean it would be _easy_. And in the meantime, anything could happen. Draco's parents could hire another killer, this time to take out Harry. The Montgomerys could get free, or someone else from the Aurors could seize Harry and conduct a ritual that would render him helpless. Someone could control Warren with the Imperius and make her betray them. (Not Jenkins, whose mind was sealed shut against any intrusion, but if Warren was in danger, Draco didn't trust Jenkins to choose them over her partner).

For now, though, _this moment, _Harry was here and heavy and present under Draco's hands, arching his head so that Draco could touch the nape of his neck and smooth his fingers up and down, and then rolling over and sucking Draco's fingers into his mouth when Draco would have withdrawn the touch.

Draco all but narrowed his eyes, and pinned Harry to the bed, knees on either side of his hips. His wand was in easy reach, and he cast a lubricating charm on himself, watching the way Harry's eyes widened in contrast to his. Harry wanted their lovemaking to be rough and tumble? Draco could do that.

He lifted himself hard and high, his head tilted back as his fingers worked down and under himself, and then he was on Harry, his hips, then his cock, while Harry gasped and gaped up at him and in general rested his fingers on Draco's side as though he had no idea that Draco could do that.

"Satisfied now?" Draco whispered down at him, his breath coming harsh from the pain. And it _was _pain, he wouldn't deny that. That just mattered less to him than the chance to be with Harry. "Ride with me."

His fingers clamped demandingly down on Harry's legs, and he made a little noise of protest but moved obediently with Draco. A second later, the obedience was gone, and he was rolling them to the side. For a few seconds more, they thrashed awkwardly on the bed. Then Harry was up and looming over Draco, driving down into him and staring at him with enormous eyes.

Draco reached up to snare Harry's neck and kiss his lips roughly. Harry half-growled and thrust wildly. Draco opened up his legs to welcome him, half-laughing when Harry shook his head at him.

"You're _mad_," Harry whispered, his lips swollen.

"But I'm going to be satisfied," Draco said, and caught his breath sharply as Harry hammered into him. Harry's eyes glowed, taking on that feral edge that Draco loved and saw so seldom. The last time he'd seen it, it had been trained on either Hannah or Montgomery and not on him, where it belonged.

"You will be, if I have anything to say about it," Harry whispered back, and began to surge up and down, snapping his hips.

Draco closed his eyes and surrendered. Thoughts whirled through his head and then were crushed to powder and less than powder as Harry thrust into him. Sometimes he thought there was something he had to worry about, and then it would scatter again. Harry's breath sawed in his ears. Draco turned his head and sought Harry's mouth, only finding it sometimes, Harry was bobbing so fast and in such an irregular rhythm.

"_Christ, _Draco," Harry moaned, and Draco's hips hurt from the pounding he was required to take.

It didn't matter. This was what he had wanted, and he stretched out his arms and his legs to embrace it. Harry laugh-roared above him, and continued carrying Draco with him on his rough journey, to heights and depths that Draco hadn't felt in a long time.

Finally, Harry stiffened, still rocking above Draco, reluctant to come. His head dipped down far enough that Draco could get his teeth into Harry's earlobe, and the taste of flesh in his mouth satisfied Draco—

And satisfied Harry, too, if the way he groaned shakily and thrust irregularly was any sign. Draco clamped his teeth down a little harder and let himself go, the burning rush through his groin slaking him as any gentler riding could not. He ran his hands through Harry's hair, moaning in discontent when Harry rolled away.

"I just have to go to the bathroom," Harry whispered back, kissing Draco's own bitten and swollen lips. He didn't remember when that had happened.

Draco rolled over, stretching a lazy arm along the bed as he watched Harry walk to the bathroom. He smoothed his hand down the sheets, staring at the small tumbled ridges that he and Harry had left.

No matter what happened to them when it came to the Ministry, no matter what the Ministry might tell _itself, _there were legacies that would survive them, Draco thought. The Ministry could not make their love affair not have happened. They couldn't erase the embarrassment that would forever pursue them for having let Ernhardt work his way into the position of Head Auror, while they had looked the other way and tried to blame his crimes on Harry and Draco instead.

And before he and Harry left today, they would put things in motion to ensure that the Ministry never _would _forget.

_If we die, if we're trapped, then others will carry on our fight._

* * *

"_There _you are. I thought you would make us wait another hour."

Harry ignored the tone in Jenkins's voice, and nodded to Warren instead, who stood back with her arms full of parchment. "What did you bring us?" he asked, his eyes darting to the third figure who stood quietly behind Warren.

"This is Diane Athright," Jenkins said, seeming to realize that scolding them was useless. She brought the other woman forwards with a hand on her arm. "Once an Auror, and now a crusader against the incompetence and corruption of the Ministry."

"A discreet crusader," said Draco, with a hard smile on his face, as he stepped up and extended a hand to Athright. "I don't remember hearing of you."

"You probably wouldn't have." Athright's voice was calm and deep. Harry glanced at her and found himself lowering his eyes quickly. She had one of those stares that was hard to meet, reminding him of Hedwig, although her eyes were only black and not gold. "The Ministry kept me on undercover cases when I was an Auror, and bound me with some oaths that I can't break when I left. The only people I _know _I can talk to are other Aurors." She flashed a bright smile at all of them. "How fortunate."

"What did you know about Ernhardt?" Draco stood with arms folded and his hair blowing slightly in a breeze.

_He wants to get right down to business, _Harry noted, and opened his mouth to apologize for Draco if he needed to. But Athright nodded at Draco and said, "I suspected that he had become corrupted by the study of the Dark Arts. He was too slow in hiding some of the books he was studying, during the times when I visited his office. And I saw his eyes shining blue more than once, and felt him pushing at my mind."

"Pushing at your mind?" Draco folded his arms tighter and considered Athright from the bottom of her shoes to the top of her hair. "What does that mean? As far as we know, there were very few people he couldn't possess. We both had to fight him off at various times."

Athright inclined her head. "I was an Auror for fifty years, and during the time that we trained, we received instruction in Occlumency, although not Legilimency. We had more criminals then who knew the Mind Art, and we might know various secrets about trials and ambush plans that couldn't be revealed to just anyone."

"Did you tell the other Aurors about Ernhardt?" Harry asked, wondering why someone hadn't at least _investigated _what Athright was talking about.

Athright laughed, a little bitterly. "There were one or two people who might have listened to me, but not many. The vast majority were just too relieved to have a Head Auror who didn't have any personal scandals attached to him and who didn't look like he was bucking to become Minister of Magic. And the people who wanted to listen to me—well, I reckon I don't have to tell you what color their eyes always were when I went to talk to them."

Harry nodded, understanding. No one Ernhardt had possessed remembered what they did when he was possessing them, so they wouldn't have remembered the conversations they had with Athright, either. "Do you know why he wanted to be Head Auror and not Minister in the first place? It seems like being Minister would have protected him even more from investigations that might happen into his wandless magic or his past."

Athright flicked her fingers. "This is only speculation, you understand. I couldn't follow what he was doing very well after he got me sacked."

"Speculation is acceptable," Draco said, moving from one foot to the other. Harry reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, and Draco subsided. Harry could guess that it wasn't Athright's testimony that troubled Draco, or even the cold on the cliffs and with the night wind blowing past them. It was that Athright's testimony indicated they might be getting closer to attacking the Ministry, to bringing Harry's plan into reality.

"Good," Athright said. "I don't think he wanted a very public position. The Minister is always under more scrutiny than the Head Auror. As long as the Head Auror does his job and can keep political blackmail on some of his colleagues, no one pays much attention to him."

Harry grimaced. "He had the perfect blackmail material. All he had to do was possess someone and make them commit a crime or just do something that would horrify them, then call them in and pretend he knew about it from unknown sources."

"Exactly." Athright let out her breath in a long hiss. "But at the same time, he was frightened. Always frightened. I sensed that about him very early on, long before I knew what he might have to be frightened about. He wanted the thrill of power and people obeying him, but he wanted to make sure that no one could turn on him or endanger him even more."

"What had frightened him?" Draco took a long step forwards and back, as though he was considering marching up to Athright to demand the answer, and then retreating to Harry's side as his good sense overcame his impatience.

Athright held Draco's gaze, then shook her head. "If I knew that, I could have resisted him when he got me sacked."

"All right," Harry said. "But do you have suspicions? Whether or not you _know _for sure?"

Athright studied him in a way that made Harry wonder what he had said to make her dissatisfied, and then smiled. "I expected the Malfoy of the pair to notice the implications of words," she said. "Not the Potter. I congratulate you, Auror Potter, and I see some of the reasons the Ministry is afraid of you."

Draco shifted his weight again. Harry patted his shoulder. Athright seemed to notice, and added, "They have reason to be afraid of you, too, Auror Malfoy. Without you at his side, it seems likely that Auror Potter would have died when he tried to go up against these machinations."

It was Draco's turn to blush and mutter, but he said, "Can you tell us what you suspect, then?"

"I think someone discovered that he was twisted, or flawed, or whatever name you want to give it now, sometime in the past," Athright said quietly. "And he became determined to prevent it from ever happening again."

Draco made a complex sound that had Harry reaching out to him again, although Draco didn't seem inclined to reach back. He was blinking at Athright in dismay. "I don't see how we're to find that out," he whispered.

"You have at least one obvious candidate that could tell you," Athright said, and glanced over her shoulder in the direction she probably thought Cuthbert's Corner stood, although as it was she looked past it. "Notes that he left behind in the house of his youth, a place he took strict precautions to protect, might tell you."

"I know what you should investigate," Jenkins said suddenly, startling Harry a little as she leaned forwards. "That lab we found, the one with the chained skeletons and the signs of collecting human blood."

"Would we find what had frightened _Ernhardt _down there, instead of the fear he caused other people?" Harry had to ask.

"Maybe you'll find out why he was so determined to make other people fear him, and put himself in a position of strength," Jenkins shot back. "The direction of someone's research can often tell you that."

Draco muttered something that sound a lot like, "And how would _you_ know that?" Harry curled his lip to keep the laughter that bubbled up down, and nodded a little to Jenkins.

"We'll continue looking, then," he said. "In the meantime, I have an idea that I wanted to tell you about, and information that I wanted to share with you." And he launched into an explanation of what he had learned from his interrogations of Montgomery and Hannah.

He watched their eyes widening and burning, in the case of Athright. He thought he could count on them to help. Warren and Jenkins were steadier allies, and Warren stood with arms folded and a repressive frown on her face as if she thought that it would demean her to agree with him. But Jenkins had a faint smile on her face, and Harry had never known the two partners to disagree for long.

_We're going to do this._


	11. Infection

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eleven—Infection_

"Masters is going back to the nasty house?"

Harry had to cough and turn away from Kreacher before he started laughing aloud at the sight of the little elf standing there with his arms folded. "Yes, we are," he said, when he was facing the wall and could focus back on the task of strengthening the wards in case Montgomery and Hannah tried to break out while they were gone. "We have to," he added over his shoulder, when he received nothing except stubborn silence. "We have to find out something that we can only find out there."

Kreacher sniffed, a sound that was longer and wetter than it had any right to be. "If masters _insists_," he said. "Kreacher will make food."

He vanished with a small bang, and Harry nodded to where he had been with gratitude. He knew they would want fresh food in Cuthbert's Corner.

In truth, he wasn't looking forward to going back to the house, either, but what else could they do? They hadn't made much progress on what was supposedly one of their major goals, finding proof that Ernhardt had existed and was the twisted they thought he was so that they could show other people _he _had been the cause of the corruption in the Aurors and the reason Harry and Draco had had to use Dark Arts. Harry knew he had wasted time by fighting the Malfoys and getting himself caught, but right now, there was little they could do about the Malfoys. It had to be Ernhardt.

"Harry? Why does Kreacher look as though he would have liked to swear at me?"

Harry turned around and smiled at Draco, who gave him a wary nod in return. He stood in the doorframe of the bedroom they'd shared, his arms folded and an expression that could turn into either a smile or a frown depending on the way he twisted his lips on his face.

"Because I told him that we have to go back to the 'nasty house,'" Harry told Draco, picking up on a hole in the wards at the same moment. He held up his hand, and Draco stepped obediently backwards while Harry concentrated on repairing the hole. He finally nodded and turned around again, when he was satisfied it would hold. "He's not enthusiastic at the idea that he can't serve us any longer."

"Why can't he serve us?" Draco demanded. "He could just come with us. When I saw him making food, I thought that was what he was going to do. Just use the kitchen here, and pop in and out of the wards when he felt like it."

Harry blinked. He hadn't even _considered _the possibility of Kreacher coming with him, which he supposed showed how out of it he was. He shook his head a little and said, "I didn't think the wards and the defenses on the house would let him do that."

"We should at least ask him," said Draco, and turned around to call Kreacher. Then he paused and added over his shoulder, "Although he had no trouble coming to me in Cuthbert's Corner when I called for him, so perhaps we already know."

Harry knew his face was burning. He cleared his throat and gave Draco a weak smile. "It's good that I have you here, to keep me from completely forgetting about important things?" he offered.

Draco smiled and kissed his cheek. "It's always a good idea for me to be with you," he murmured, and then joined Harry in strengthening the wards.

* * *

"Kreacher will be cleanings! Kreacher will be cleanings!"

Kreacher had a martial light burning in his eyes as he surveyed the wreckage of the corridor outside the bedroom and bathroom Harry and Draco had cleared. He didn't even pay attention to the bloody letters burning on the walls, Draco noted. Well, they probably didn't affect him. Even wizards who lived with house-elves often didn't build protection into their wards and walls against them, because it would interfere too much with their own popping up when they wanted them, and most others just overlooked them completely.

"Good," Draco said, as casually as he could make it. "I would enjoy living in a clean house again."

Kreacher nodded to him in a grim manner. "Kreacher is understandings what Master Draco be wanting!" he declared, and then sprang into action, a bucket of soapy water and a broom and cloth appearing beside him. Draco shook his head. He had long since stopped trying to understand where house-elves got their things or how house-elf magic worked.

However, in this case, he thought it highly likely that Kreacher had brought those things with him from Grimmauld Place.

Draco turned to Harry. "Shall we?" he asked, gesturing down the first corridor where they had found the bloody letters. It was the one that led to the hidden staircase, and thus the Potions lab Ernhardt had worked in.

Draco was careful to keep his face blank when Harry glanced at him, both because he didn't think it would reassure Harry to see how fearful Draco really was, and because he didn't think seeing _glee _would appeal to Harry, either.

And it wasn't like Draco was really looking forward to seeing blood and bones. He had never got over his dislike of torturing people who hadn't hurt him personally. He would flinch and turn away from the evidence the first time he saw it. He'd done that when they'd investigated the lab with Warren and Jenkins.

But Ernhardt had either been a genius or guided by madness that was close to genius, and Draco could admit that he really did want to look more closely at his work. If there was nothing they could use there, there would still be the fascination of understanding something difficult and important about Potions.

Harry led the way, both to the room with the hidden panel and then down the hidden staircase. Draco let _Lumos _flare from his wand this time, illuminating the slime on the walls and the thick dust that drifted and floated around them, disturbed by their passage. This time, they knew that there were no necromantic defenses left in the house that could harm them.

Well, they sort of knew it, anyway. Draco supposed it was possible that they hadn't found and disarmed all the nasty little surprises Ernhardt had left behind, the same way that they didn't know what all the bloody letters meant yet.

They came out into the lab, and Harry went towards the back, the place where they'd found the chained skeleton. Draco grimaced and moved towards the front, the home of the dissecting tables and the blood grooves in the floor.

Nothing had changed. The blood was still dried flakes, and the tables still clear of any fresh victims. Draco had had a brief nightmare about there being someone fresh here last night, but he'd woken with Harry's hand on his shoulder, and that had turned into another desperate mixture of kissing and sucking.

But even though they wouldn't find fresh victims here, that didn't mean Draco couldn't discover important information. He crouched over the tables and began to study the signs carved there, wondering if it would be more bloody letters or other sigils that made up part of the code Ernhardt had left on the walls.

He found a strange mark right away. It was scratched on the right front leg of the table, and it could have been natural damage to the wood, the sort that even the most well-made furniture would endure as it weathered. But he knew when he ran his fingers over it that that wasn't so, and he moved his head and was sure when he caught a metallic flash from inside it.

He shut his eyes and let his fingers wander the scratch, tapping here, pressing there. A charm enveloped his fingers that would guard him from the sudden thrust of needles or other traps if Ernhardt had left them there. Draco didn't think there was much of that kind here, though; Ernhardt had relied more on hiding things and never letting anyone know enough about him to make them dangerous.

And at last he found it, the place where his fingers fit into the groove, the way they could hook and pull, and what had seemed a scratch became the edge of a lid. Or a panel, Draco reckoned, opening his eyes as he watched the roundest part of the table leg turn outwards and reveal a small scroll of parchment coiled within the hollow space. Draco took it out, carefully, floating it with his wand rather than touching it. He didn't fear the Dark curses and spells so much as the spiderweb of brown age on the parchment's back. It might crumble if he touched it, and he didn't want that to happen.

"You found something?"

Draco started, hard. The parchment might have fluttered to the floor if he had less control of his magic. He tilted his head back and frowned at Harry. "Yes. No thanks to you. I didn't know you were coming up behind me," he added, when Harry frowned at him and shook his head, not understanding his crime.

Harry grunted and said, "I still haven't found anything that we didn't before. What is this?" He took a seat on the floor, folding his legs with a fluidity that made Draco mutter to himself, and looked at Draco expectantly.

Draco nodded grudgingly to Harry and unfolded the parchment in midair with spells that his father had made him learn before he would let Draco read most of the rare texts in the library. There was paper out there, suited to holding magical spells, that would be corrupted by the oils on human skin. Draco suspected this was a similar case.

At the same time, the lettering that appeared as he unfolded the paper didn't look as though it was very old. The ink was dark and glittering, not faded, and Draco could see the shadows of something faded underneath it. A piece of old parchment that Ernhardt had found and used, Draco thought, rather than something genuinely ancient in its contents.

Harry had leaned forwards and was squinting, but seemed to have taken a cue from Draco not to touch it. Draco said anyway, "Don't touch it."

"Do you think I want to pick up some bloody poison that Ernhardt left behind?" Harry retorted immediately. "I'm not foolish."

"Most of the poisons he used probably wouldn't make you vomit blood," Draco said, feeling perverse. "He wouldn't want to waste blood that way, when he was so intent on collecting it." He gestured to the channels cut in the floor.

Harry looked patiently at Draco, and waited until Draco blinked and looked reluctantly back. Then he shook his head and said, "Draco. What is it? The atmosphere of this place? Or the writing itself?" He leaned in and studied the parchment again, not touching it but with his nose closer than Draco liked. "I can't decipher anything yet."

Draco swallowed and shook his head. "The atmosphere of this place," he muttered. "Sorry. I think it's getting to me." He cleared his throat and leaned closer, trying to relax and let his eyes unfocus, tracing the curves and dips of the letters, and shaping them into a message that made sense.

There was Ernhardt's name, or at least the name they had known him by, repeated again and again along the upper edge of the parchment. Draco tried to see what had been written on the parchment before that, the faded ink marks, but had to give it up as a bad job. It probably didn't matter, anyway. If there had been a powerful Dark spell or ritual inscribed on this, Ernhardt would have retained it rather than use this to scribble his message on.

The second line contained another name, one that Draco searched his memory for carefully before he had to admit that he'd never encountered it before in his life. _Jared Thacker, Jared Thacker, Jared Thacker…_

Even when Draco thought about it like that, the way the name was written on the parchment, in a steady, silent stream of words, it awakened no echo in his mind. He shook his head and passed down to the line beneath it, already wondering if the parchment would be all names, and if they were the names of people Ernhardt had possessed or consumed, or been in the past. They still had no absolute proof that Ernhardt had lived all his life in the body they had known, rather than jumping out of one that was dying and into Ernhardt's when he was still a young man.

But the third line was not a name, unless there was a wizarding family out there Draco had never heard of with the moniker of Blood. And there was no first name paired with it, either. It repeated again and again and again, not only on the third line, but on the fourth and the fifth and the sixth, until Draco gave up counting.

He nearly missed the last message, written down near the bottom of the parchment, on what would be the last line if it wasn't ragged and crooked, marching into the margin. This, at last, was a joined sentence.

_Infection through the blood by Thacker, passed on, becoming the one who passes out._

Draco shuddered. Harry leaned closer over his shoulder, asking without words what was wrong, and Draco let his finger hover above the last line, still not touching. Harry read it and sucked in a breath.

"So someone else, this Thacker person, infected Ernhardt and made him a twisted through swallowing a twisted's blood, the same way Alexander got infected," Harry whispered. "The same way Ernhardt might have infected other people."

Draco nodded silently. Then his doubts caught up with him, and he sighed. "Remember that this parchment is a silent witness," he said, echoing some of the lessons drilled into their heads when they were Auror trainees. "There is no reason to think that you're interpreting its message correctly without outside evidence."

"I think it's pretty bloody clear." Harry's voice rose a little. "We know that the infection can be passed on, that you don't have to study Dark Arts to become a twisted. For that matter, just using your flaw a lot could do it. Macgeorge became twisted when she used that necromancy to help us."

"Necromancy is a Dark Art," Draco felt compelled to point out. "And she was studying it rather a lot, so that she could help us in the investigation."

Harry only shook his head, refusing the semantic distinction. Draco had to admit that he would feel the same, in Harry's position. "Someone made Ernhardt what he was. He was a _victim, _if you think about it that way." Harry's hand closed in a stern spasm on Draco's shoulder. "It's not like I ever wanted to feel sorry for fucking Ernhardt. Sod the bastard. But it might not have been his fault."

Draco only bowed his head, and said nothing. He wanted to say that they still didn't know. Maybe Ernhardt had asked for the infection, longing for the power that having a gift of wandless magic would give him, without realizing that it would drive him insane, or how terrible the power to possess others would be.

But Draco's eyes went back again to the blood grooves in the floor, and the tables. Dissecting tables, yes, of the kind that couldn't just be ordered from any ordinary furniture-maker, not when the cuffs had to be positioned just so. They had to be custom-made, or built by oneself. And these were old.

Older than Ernhardt, perhaps? Older than his possession of the house? Could they once have belonged to a man named Jared Thacker?

Draco climbed shakily to his feet. "We have a name to search on now, at least," he said aloud. "And that's something." He caused the parchment to fold itself again with a few swishes of his wand, and floated it off to the side, so it could accompany them up the stairs without their having to touch it.

Harry nodded. "I think that Kreacher might be able to get into the Ministry for us, if Jenkins and Warren don't want to search. And that's better than anything we had before." He put a hand on Draco's shoulder, guiding him back to the stairs.

Draco did pause to look back at the closet where they had found the skeleton. "Did you find anything new?"

Harry shook his head. "A few more bones. No names. No parchment." He looked sideways in awe at the parchment hovering next to Draco.

Draco spun his wand in his hand for a moment. He knew the wisest thing to do would be to leave the lab. They had the name of someone who had either worked with or hurt Ernhardt, and it would be easier to track that name, which many fewer people could know about, through history and archives and files than it would have been to track Ernhardt.

But part of him still wanted answers. Concrete answers, quick ones, ones that they would have now instead of weeks from now.

And Draco knew a little of necromancy, which he had looked up and studied a bit when Macgeorge was helping them, although he didn't have her gift—or flaw—for it.

"Get that smile off your face."

Draco blinked and turned to face Harry. "I was unaware that I was smiling."

Harry shook his head firmly. His eyes had gone narrow and deadly, and he considered Draco as if Draco was someone who might need to be imprisoned soon. "Well, all right, it's not really a smile. But the way you focus on something that makes your lips turn up and your eyes squint. I know that you're plotting something that could get us into trouble, and I want you to stop it. Right. Now." He took a step towards Draco.

"I was considering using necromancy to make the bones in the closets talk," Draco admitted. "I know a spell that would do that, just make them reveal their memories of the past. People even used it up to forty years ago, when everyone got so paranoid about necromancy that they banned every spell remotely related to it."

"And rightly." Harry spoke harshly. Draco knew the images his mind was full of, because Draco's was the same: creatures made up of the bones of many small animals, houses with walls of flesh, skeleton bats with sharp claws that would aim directly for the eyes. "We went through enough of that with Macgeorge. And Ernhardt might even have left traps here for those who used necromancy in this house and weren't him."

"I want to try it," Draco said softly. "I know that you'll recognize if something goes wrong and be able to stop me."

"I don't know Light magic specifically related to stopping necromancy," Harry retorted.

"You know enough," Draco said, and stepped forwards.

Harry tensed beside him, and Draco knew that he might be reaching out to grab him and stop his wand from moving. He didn't look around. Merlin knew that he had followed Harry on enough half-witted plans and the like. He would have thought that, just once, Harry could trust him and stop being a paranoid bastard.

And Harry didn't stop him, although he did hiss under his breath and hover close, as if that would make any difference to the necromancy getting out of control.

Draco smiled over at him before he closed his eyes and immersed himself fully in the spell, which he didn't know all that well. He had read up on it a month ago, he had learned it for the first time when he was young in his parents' library, but that didn't make it the same as a charm or curse he cast every day.

* * *

_This is a bad idea. _

But Harry bit his lips and stayed silent. Draco seemed driven since he had found that parchment. Harry could see the light stirring behind his eyes, the abrupt and jerky movements of his hands and hair and head.

He didn't _want _to think that Ernhardt had been a victim, in any way. And Harry would agree that he mostly hadn't. What Ernhardt had done to stay alive argued that he wasn't entirely insane, the way some of the other twisted were, and Harry thought that made him responsible for his actions.

But Draco seemed to hate and reject the idea that Ernhardt might have been turned into a twisted rather than born as one. Even though they had known that infection by drinking someone else's blood was possible for a long time now, and even though there were signs here that experiments like that had been performed.

_Maybe he would have to acknowledge that I'm right, and killing twisted all the time is a bad idea? _

But Harry managed to put even that notion aside as he watched Draco struggle with the spell. This was bigger and more important than about who had been right in that stupid debate. If this spell eased Draco's mind, Harry would let him cast it.

Draco breathed out, finally, and Harry tried to ignore the sensations of cold against his skin and the grave dirt he thought he smelled. Then Draco whispered, "_Ossi voco._"

There was a long, rattling stir that raised the hairs on Harry's arms, and then the bones Harry had seen in the closet rose up and assembled in front of Draco. Draco stretched out a hand. A fingerbone and something that Harry thought really could have come from anywhere in the body settled into his outstretched palm. Harry rubbed his own palms fiercely on his trousers, and tried to be ready.

Draco gasped, his eyes flying open. Harry took a quick step forwards, but Draco seemed to see that even through his distraction, and shook his head again. "Let me," he whispered, in a voice as dry as the bones themselves. "Let me do this. Let me see this. Let me speak this."

So Harry stepped back, and waited, and listened as the words seemed to rise far down in the back of Draco's throat, making their way up slowly but steadily. Draco exhaled, and cold mist _did _drift out into the air and fill the cellar. Harry stomped his feet and hissed, rubbing his hands together.

The mist came together, and formed pictures.

Harry would recognize Ernhardt anywhere, and in any guise, and that was what he saw now: Ernhardt, with his hands chained behind his back and eyes wide open and mouth open in a scream, having blood poured down his throat. The wizard who stood over him wore a cloak and hood. Harry assumed it was Jared Thacker, although there was no way to be sure of what features he really wore, given the concealing clothing.

Ernhardt staggered, and whatever spells had made him keep his mouth open and swallow the blood seemed to fade. He began to choke and gasp and sob, and blood leaked out of the corners of his mouth.

Harry shuddered and looked at Draco. Draco's face was so pale that he looked as if he would faint, but he didn't take his eyes off the pictures forming in front of him.

Then the picture faded, and Draco _did _fall, but Harry was there to catch him, and cradle him, and march him back up to the top of the stairs, the parchment floating beside them and the bones still wrapped so tightly in Draco's fist that Harry thought he would have no luck in prying Draco's hands open. Draco had done what he had to do, but Harry hated that it had been this hard for him.

He did wonder one thing, though. Why had the bones shown them that vision, Ernhardt in his recognizable body, rather than the vision of what had happened to the person _they _originally belonged to?


	12. A Thundering

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twelve—A Thundering_

"Master Draco."

Draco stared at Kreacher, who had appeared in front of the bed but stood there with his back to him. Draco wondered if Kreacher was trying to arrange a heavy tray of food or something, and couldn't spare the concentration to glance at him.

But he started to suspect it was more than that when Kreacher kept his back turned. He did arrange a tray, but it was a small one and contained toast and tea and other kinds of food that you would feed an invalid. He floated it to Draco's lap without looking at him and without coming over to arrange things neatly, fussily, the way he liked to do.

"Kreacher?" Draco asked, then winced and touched his throat. It felt as though he'd been screaming. He recognized the effect as one of the things that sometimes happened when one used powerful necromantic magic, but he didn't know if Kreacher knew that, too, and disapproved of him using it, or if something else had happened.

"Where's Harry?" he asked, sitting up and bending over his tray. The tea smelled delicious, but he had to sip it slowly, letting the scalding liquid travel down his half-burned throat without undue fuss.

"Master Harry is being translating the bloody letters." Kreacher answered sullenly, keeping his head bowed. He was cleaning a faucet that looked like it had come out of the bathroom, Draco saw, finally angling his body around enough to peer at Kreacher's work. He had no doubt Kreacher could replace it just like he'd taken it out, but he was surprised that Kreacher was tending to that instead of his human charges.

"And you didn't go with him?" Draco asked, when the words caught up with his brain. He put down his teacup and frowned at Kreacher's back. "He shouldn't be alone when he's doing that. We don't know how the letters affect his mind, yet."

"Oh, _Master Harry _is being safe and fine," Kreacher told the wall, and straightened up as though he wanted to throw the faucet handle he held. A moment later, he was bending over it again, scrubbing it more industriously than ever. "Just like _Master Draco _is being safe and fine when he be using dangerous Dark magic in a dangerous place!" His voice soared, and he finally whipped around to face Draco.

Draco blinked when he realized that Kreacher's eyes were full of tears, and drops of snot clung to his nose as he sniffled. "Kreacher, what's the matter?" he asked helplessly. "I thought you wanted to come with us and be here."

"Kreacher did not wants to be coming here to see masters _doom themselves!_" Kreacher stamped his foot, and the walls shook. "Kreacher did not wants to be coming here to tend to corpses!" He pushed his hands through the mess on his face with a squelching noise, wavered, and burst out howling.

"I didn't do anything that would doom myself," Draco said, deciding he could do the most with a soft, cold voice. He turned back to his meal. His tea had cooled, but he didn't want to try a Warming Charm right now. There was a fragility to the bones in his hand that warned him off magic. "I used a spell that should show us something about the bones we found. I don't know everything about the vision yet, but I will."

"Master Draco _was usings death magic in a death magic room,_" Kreacher said, not loud, but low enough that Draco thought he felt the walls shake. "Master Draco is beings a much more stupid master than Kreacher was being thinking!"

He almost screamed the last words, and this time, Draco did wince. He lowered his tray and sat there, though, partially because he thought it was the best way to get Kreacher's attention back and partially because he didn't know what else he should do.

"What do you mean by death magic, and a death magic room? That was a necromancy spell, but it's not the same as doing actual necromancy." Draco thought of trying to explain that remark further, but decided that he didn't really need to, and he wasn't going to try. If Kreacher had never seen Macgeorge in the full thrall of her gift, then he wouldn't understand, anyway.

"Death magic is death magic," Kreacher said, in what was probably the most unhelpful thing that Draco had ever heard him say. "And a death magic room is a room of death magic."

Draco sighed and picked up the nearest piece of toast. "Why don't you go and look after Harry? I'm fine here, and I'm not going to get up and go anywhere."

The dubious expression Kreacher gave Draco made him want to laugh, but also pissed him off. He took a long bite of toast, a long sip of tea, and leaned back on his pillow, turning his head away.

Kreacher sniffed and vanished. Draco exhaled, keeping his eyes on the wall. First Harry had almost held him back from performing that spell, and now Kreacher thought it was a bad idea. But how else were they supposed to discover the truth about Ernhardt?

And Draco refused to feel _sorry _for the bastard. He refused. He would learn what had happened, and perhaps there would be another name to track down through the Ministry archives—as there already was—but there would be no sympathy for Ernhardt. He had wrought too much havoc, and for what? Fear, and the chance to dominate. Not even as principled a stand as Draco's parents were trying to make.

_Former parents,_ he had to remind himself, since they wouldn't know.

That ached more than he expected, but the ache was also already dulling.

* * *

Harry bent over the corner of the wall and frowned at it. Was there a bloody letter there? It looked as if there once had been, but also as though someone had scrubbed it off. Harry rubbed his finger along the wall above it and shook his head. He wouldn't get anything done by standing here, and Draco was better at reading the letters than he was. Harry had really come out to do it so that he would accomplish something other than just hanging around above Draco's bed all day.

"Master Harry is beings all right?"

Harry started and turned around. He didn't know why Kreacher's voice startled him so much, when the sound of him popping in didn't, but he had to catch his balance against the wall for a second. "Is Draco awake?" he asked. "I told you to leave him only if he was awake."

Kreacher sniffed and wiped at his face. It looked as though he had been _crying, _Harry thought, and that was so strange that he started to open his mouth to ask what had happened. But Kreacher spoke before he could. "Master Draco is beings awake, and is being eating, and is not seeing what he did wrong."

"That spell he cast?" Harry made his way down the corridor until he stood beside Kreacher, who stared fiercely at the bloody letter that looked as if it had been rubbed away. "I knew it was a bad one."

"It be weakening Master Draco," Kreacher whispered fiercely. "It still be."

Harry blinked and stood up. He had thought the spell making Draco faint and lie in a coma-like sleep for a few hours was bad enough, but this was something new. No wonder Kreacher had looked so upset when Harry told him what had happened. "How do you know that?" Kreacher cast him a dire look that seemed to speak of all the years he'd been around Dark magic, and Harry winced and raised a hand. "Right, sorry. What I mean is, what is it doing to him? How can we stop it?"

"It be hurting his throat," Kreacher said, with a little sniff, as though he acknowledged Harry's right to care about Draco after all. "And it be draining his magic. He be getting physically weaker." He turned and faced Harry, his ears up. "Unless it be stopping."

"How do I stop it?" Harry thought he had already asked that question, but apparently not loudly enough for Kreacher, who cocked his head and looked at him with eyes that glittered as though they were made of black diamonds.

"Yous must be casting a different kind of spell," Kreacher whispered. "A healing spell that be combining with the death magic in Master Draco and be yanking it out."

Harry was about to say that he was pants at healing spells, but it was true that he wasn't as bad as a true twisted, and he would do anything to save Draco. He nodded. "Fine. Teach me the spell, or show me the book where I can learn it."

Kreacher bowed and said, "Kreacher be bringing Master Harry the book. Master Harry is to be returning to Master Draco now." And he vanished with what looked like an expression of relief on his face.

Harry shook his head as he hurried back to Draco. He wondered why Kreacher hadn't just brought the book earlier and shown him the spell and told him that Draco needed his help, but he supposed it was against a house-elf's instincts or something. Or maybe Kreacher was prohibited from speaking to wizards that directly.

_Hermione would tell me that I know too little about house-elves, especially when I didn't even realize Kreacher could follow us to Cuthbert's Corner._

Harry felt his heart squeeze. At the moment, he would give a great deal to hear Hermione tell him _anything, _even that he didn't know enough about Kreacher and should make some effort to learn.

But he knew when he became part of the Socrates Corps, let alone when he went on the run, that he couldn't rely as much on his friends, because there were things he could never tell them. That was for later, when Harry would make sure they were part of the audience for the grand exposure at the Ministry.

He buried those thoughts and stepped into the bedroom, where Draco lay shivering and curled under all the blankets he could find, and settled down at his side, waiting for the time when Kreacher would bring the book and he could start on the spell.

* * *

This time, at least Draco wasn't alone and wasn't with a house-elf when he woke up, which was an improvement on the last time. He opened his eyes and turned his head slowly, though, feeling achy and hot and out of sorts.

"Draco?" Harry's voice was soft, and he leaned forwards to place one hand on Draco's forehead. Draco turned his head, mouth gaping open despite himself, tongue reaching for Harry's hand. Harry let him lick his palm, but his expression, what Draco could see of it, remained so worried that Draco knew he wouldn't get the reaction he wanted. "Kreacher brought me a book and told me about a spell I should perform to release you from the effects of the necromancy. Do you want to do it now, or do you want to wait?"

Kreacher's voice rose, shrill, from the end of Draco's bed. "Master Harry be performing it right now! Master Draco is getting worse!"

"I don't feel good," Draco whispered, and pouted. That had sometimes got him what he wanted from his parents, and although Harry was a long way from either of them, Draco thought it was worth trying. "I want to wait and see how I feel tomorrow." He turned over under the blankets, and shivered, then frowned. Why did he want the blankets when he felt as though the sun was shining on him? He kicked to get them off, but they didn't come off. They must have been piled on top of him, he thought.

"You have a fever," Harry said quietly. "And what we can learn from the bones isn't as important as saving you."

Draco turned over and blinked at him. "But that's the usual effect of this kind of spell," he said, proud of himself for getting that many words out all in a row without spluttering. "The spell can tell me more about the bones, but I have to pass through a fever first. To—enlightenment." That word was unexpectedly difficult to remember, and he frowned and shook his head.

"I don't care if it's the usual effect of this kind of spell." Harry's eyes glittered with such coldness that Draco found himself tempted to creep back under the blankets after all. "_Nothing _is more important than your life."

Draco swallowed, and took one hand out from under the blanket-cocoon, after a little trouble, to hang onto Harry's. "Thank you," he whispered. "I can't remember the last time anyone said that to me—"

Harry squeezed his wrist once and released it, his eyes alight with something that might have been good humor. "Good. You deserve to hear it more often, though. Now." He took a step back and breathed a few times, then added, "It's a healing spell, and you know I'm not good with those."

"Right," Draco said, with a vigorous nod that a moment later he worried he shouldn't have done, because it made his head hurt. He cradled it with one hand on his brow and shut his eyes. "Because you kept having to go to St. Mungo's, and then they got you banned."

"There were other reasons, but yeah, that's one of them." Harry's smile didn't seem to reach his eyes. Draco wanted to reach out and smooth the furrow of worry from his brow, but Harry moved back from the bed before he could, and picked up an old, black leather book, with cracks in the binding all the way to the edge of the pages. When he flicked it open, Draco could see torn pages inside, too.

"I'm going to do my best to cast the spell and not hurt you," Harry continued softly, his eyes fastened on Draco as though he was the center of the universe. Draco had to admit that he liked the feeling, and he fell back in the bed, smiling, and decided that it wouldn't be horrible to have someone care for him like that.

If Harry could do it and cast the spell at the same time. Draco, anxious again, strained his neck, but Harry had circled around behind the bed, and Draco couldn't see him anymore.

Harry said nothing for long moments, but Draco knew he was there because of the sound of flipping pages. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Kreacher muttered something from the bottom of the bed, where he still hovered, but Draco didn't have any attention to spare for him at the moment. He was too busy trying to reason out the incantation he could hear Harry practicing under his breath now.

Then Harry walked around to the front of the bed again, and Draco opened his eyes so they could look each other in the face. Harry appeared worried enough to be holding his breath, but his face relaxed despite himself when he met Draco's gaze.

"It'll be all right," he said, and the words seemed to pass into Draco, to clean up some of his fever, and to be a safe anchor that he and the bed could both cling to. Draco found himself nodding without being sure what he'd agreed to.

Harry fell back one pace, eyes on the book. Then he cleared his throat one more time and began, the sound light but piercing.

"_Animum eluo, mentem eluo, cordem eluo…_"

Draco didn't think some of the words were being pronounced correctly, and Harry's voice seemed to be speaking into his head at the same time as it was speaking outside it, saying, _I've always been pants at healing spells._

Draco tried to say that maybe they should wait, or Harry should summon Warren and Jenkins, or Kreacher should perform the spell. But there were barriers to all of that that he couldn't remember, some reason no other solution could work, and his throat worked open and shut on the air without producing sound.

Meanwhile, seemingly unaffected by the fact that he was also communicating with Draco on a telepathic level, Harry continued chanting.

"_Animum detergeo, mentem detergeo, cordem detergeo…_"

It was too _hot. _Draco kicked off the blankets on him, and even his eyes felt too hot where his eyelids were covering them, so he turned his head and opened them. That made the room spin for long seconds before it settled. Even when he thought he knew what he was seeing, he still wasn't really sure.

Harry stood there with the book balanced on one arm like some kind of evil hawk and his wand extended. A blue, shimmering arch of light was growing up between the book and his wand, and stretching towards the bed to encompass Draco. Other than the color, which was different, it looked like the mist that had formed the pictures Draco had summoned from the bones.

And then he remembered what was _wrong _about what Harry was doing, and the reason he couldn't be allowed to complete it. The bones had told them part of the story of Ernhardt, but they hadn't taught him the whole thing. If Harry was allowed to cast this spell on Draco the way he wanted, then he would lose the ability to understand the pictures, and he would have to cast the spell all over again.

Or, worse, leave the story unknown.

"No, Harry," he pleaded, hardly able to listen to the words leaving his mouth, because he had always hated begging. Even when he was a child and he knew he _had _to beg his parents to buy him something or get him something, he had always held out as long as he could. But now he had no parents, and no family, and only Harry to support and depend on.

If Harry deserted him, if Harry didn't listen to him, then what would he have left?

"Harry, please don't do this. Harry, _please_." Draco knew his voice was rising to shrill levels, but so far, there was no sign that Harry was listening to him. The arch moved closer and closer to the bed, and soon it would stretch out and lay itself down over Draco like a net, and it would close up his throat, it would choke off his voice, it would—

Choking, Draco lunged to the side of the bed, but strong, rubbery hands caught and held him. Draco turned his head and stared into Kreacher's eyes. It looked as though Kreacher was crying, but he didn't move from holding Draco still.

"Master Draco be sick," he whispered. "Master Harry be helping."

Draco could feel himself spinning, falling, tumbling down a long, dark tunnel that he had never thought he would fall down, not once he became Harry's partner. He would always have someone who supported him, who _loved _him, there to count on, if only he listened to Harry and loved Harry.

But instead, Harry had turned against him, and made the blackest fear in Draco's heart come true.

He threw his head back and screamed.

* * *

Harry wanted to step back and fling the book down when he heard Draco start pleading. He wanted to run from the room, run to the bed, beg forgiveness, throw up.

Maybe because he wanted so many conflicting things, he kept hold of the book and kept chanting almost by reflex, and the spell reached out and folded itself around Draco as Harry pronounced the last words.

"_Eluo! Detergeo!_"

The blue light meant that Harry couldn't hear Draco's voice anymore once the spell was wrapped around Draco's head and shoulders, and the scream abruptly cut off. Harry flexed his hands and dropped the bloody book next to the bed. Then he ran around it to take Kreacher's place, and Kreacher moved out of the way with a stern glance at him. Harry didn't know whether the glance was meant to tell him not to disrupt the healing or not to hurt Draco further, and he didn't care. He'd either done too much or not enough. It didn't seem possible that things were going to come out all _right_.

So he held onto Draco's hands and watched the blue light washing over him in trembling but regular waves, starting at his feet and wavering up to his head. Soon, it began to concentrate on his throat, and a writhing little knot of cerulean snakes gathered there. Harry swallowed and tried not to hope, because that seemed like it would be a bad idea at this point.

Something else began to rise out of Draco's throat, piercing the skin. Harry opened his mouth, sure it was a bone, and then realized the dead white color wasn't the only thing that marked the rising object. It was also transparent, and Draco had stopped screaming, his mouth frozen open. Harry grabbed his hands and began to murmur reassurance, uncaring whether Draco could hear him or not.

"I'm here. I promise that I'll never do anything like this to you again. I'll always discuss this with you first. I won't let you cast the _spell _in the first place, and then you won't need healing like this. I won't listen to Kreacher so blindly…"

But Draco was beyond hearing him, and the blue light collected, and collected, and collected, until Harry almost lost the transparent thing swarming out of Draco in all the brilliance. Then there was a soundless explosion.

Harry expected it to fling him against the wall, away from Draco, but instead he just felt it down his arms and in his heart, thick and so strong that he shuddered and screamed himself. And then it was gone, and the blue light was gone, and Draco lay breathing softly on the bed.

Harry stood up, still holding Draco's hands, and glanced at Kreacher. "Whatever was tormenting him is gone?" he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. "The spell?"

Kreacher glanced back and forth from Harry to Draco as though he didn't want to give the answer, and finally nodded. "The spell is being gone," he said, and bowed, his ears drooping a little. "But Master Harry be hurting Master Draco a great deal to make it happen."

"I know," Harry said, and bent over to kiss Draco. Even that didn't wake him up, though he stirred a little and rolled over as though he would welcome Harry's presence in his bed. "But I'll make it up to him."

Kreacher sniffed. "Master Harry had _better_."

_Kreacher can be a scary little bastard when he wants, _Harry thought, but he doubted that anything would ever again be as scary as watching that transparent bone rising up from Draco's throat. Or having to be the one who made it rise.

He curled up on the bed next to Draco and leaned his head on Draco's shoulder, closing his eyes. He supposed he should be up and doing things, tracking the bloody letters or trying to find out more about Ernhardt, but he'd had to damage his lover today. Everything else could wait.


	13. Jared Thacker

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirteen—Jared Thacker_

"You mean you actually _have _something? I thought you wouldn't, since you can't search the Ministry archives."

Harry hid a wince. Draco was leaning against him still, a little weak from the spell Harry had performed the day before yesterday, but that was no excuse for not noticing the irritated expression that slipped over Athright's face. They'd contacted Jenkins with Jared Thacker's name, and she had written back to say that Athright had something and would meet them at the same spot on the cliffs outside Cuthbert's Corner that she had before.

"I have contacts and friends, who are sometimes of even more use than are Ministry archives," Athright said, and shook herself a little, as though desperately soothing ruffled feathers. She ended up taking a breath deep enough to flutter her hair, and turning to Harry. "You trust my information?"

Harry nodded. He wanted to say that they didn't have much choice, since they knew nothing about Jared Thacker, and wouldn't know if Athright came up with wrong information. But in some things he was wiser than Draco, so he wouldn't say that.

"Good," Athright said. "As it happens, I'd heard of him before, in the context of a magical experimenter and researcher, though certainly nothing that would associate him with Dark wizards." She took a file that resembled a Ministry one from her robes and held it out to Harry. "Here's the notes on what I could remember, along with the owls from my contacts who could get back to me in this short amount of time. I'll have more for you tomorrow, but I don't know if I'll be able to come back so soon. I'll send them through Jenkins."

Harry took the file and nodded. "Thank you. That was remarkably quick." It _was _remarkable that they had information on Thacker now, and Athright had also accepted, easily, the idea that she couldn't owl them directly. She didn't seem to mind that they didn't trust her that much.

"Good," Athright said. "Because I have a favor to ask of you."

Draco tried to straighten up again, but ended up leaning on Harry too obviously instead, in a way that Harry knew he probably hated. Harry rolled his eyes and said nothing. He wouldn't get through to the stubborn git anyway. "What favor can we do you when we're on the run and the Ministry hates us more than it hates you?" Draco asked flatly. "Don't ask for what we can't promise."

Athright turned to Harry, so calm and polite that Harry was a little surprised. Only the pursing of her lips showed that she might have a different opinion behind that polished exterior. "Is he always this impetuous, before he even knows what favor someone might ask of him?" she asked.

Harry bit his tongue so that he wouldn't laugh. To think that someone thought _Draco _was the impetuous one of the pair of them made Draco stare, and Harry thought that was the only reason he was able to get a word in edgewise before his partner did. "Sometimes," he said. "But it's true that we might or might not be able to do you the favor, hunted as we are. What is it?"

"At least you _ask_." Athright folded her arms and shot Draco a hard glance. He had the sense to stay silent this time, although Harry could sense how hard it was for him in the tight grip on his arm. Athright nodded. "What I want you to do is make sure that I stay involved in this investigation until the end."

Harry blinked. "Sorry? Surely that's more a matter for you to decide than for us?"

Athright leaned forwards, her eyes so bright that they looked like a leopard's. "I was an Auror, Potter. I know how it is. You get caught up in the thrill of the chase, and you don't want to spare the time to call anyone to your side. Sometimes, not even a partner."

Harry flushed and tried not to look at Draco. "And you want us to make sure that we call you?"

Athright nodded. "When you get ready to have this final confrontation at the Ministry that Simone has more than hinted you'll have. Send me an owl. I might not get there in time, I might or might not be able to leave what I'm doing, but in that case, that would be my fault and not yours. That is the price I ask for my aid."

"It was a favor a minute ago," Draco muttered.

Harry pinched his arm and nodded at Athright. "We don't have regular access to owls except when one brings us a message. We thought it was too dangerous. But I can send a Patronus to you, can't I?"

Athright smiled. "Of course. You may not expect one in return, since I was never particularly adept at that branch of magic. But I will certainly be able to hear your news wherever I am when it comes."

"Good," Harry said, and waited until she gave them a salute and Apparated away before he nudged Draco in the ribs. Draco was still staring, almost pouting, at where Athright had been. "Draco? Come on. It's late, and you should be in bed."

"I want to review in the information in that file." Draco nodded impatiently at the folder Harry clutched. "I told you, I want to know every nuance of what happened here, whether Thacker really turned Ernhardt into a twisted or not." He sounded as if he was choking.

"Why does it matter so much if Ernhardt was born a twisted or infected into being one?" Harry asked quietly, his hand on Draco's arm so that Draco couldn't break away from him and try to walk to the house on his own. "I don't think it excuses what he did, either way. He was still sane enough to try and kill people to keep them from being threats to him, and that's sane enough to count as responsible in my book."

"I don't want to pity him."

Harry concealed a sigh, although with difficulty. Draco had been saying the same thing since he woke up from his coma. And all right, Harry could see why he didn't want to be forced to think of Ernhardt kindly in any way, or to regret hunting him down and killing him.

But it was highly likely that Narcissa had been born a twisted, too. At least, Harry didn't see any way that she could have drunk infected blood and turned into one that way. It was probably studying Dark Arts in her case. Did it really matter how one particular twisted turned into one? What mattered most, Harry thought, was twisted as a group, so that they could show how the Ministry had been busy setting up definitions that tried to lump together different cases as one and exploiting people with flaws for their own use while denying that anyone who had a flaw could be _any _use.

"I want to look at the file," Draco repeated, although he'd already said that, and stumbled a little. Maybe now that Athright was gone, he didn't feel that he needed to keep up his façade of strength all the time, Harry thought.

"We'll do that as soon as we get inside," Harry promised, and they carried on limping towards Cuthbert's Corner.

* * *

Hard as it was to admit, even to himself, Draco almost preferred to have Kreacher fussing over him to Harry, right now.

Harry _tried. _He got Draco anything he asked for, and he fetched food for him and plumped his pillows and let Draco see the book that the spell had come out of, although he hesitated beforehand, as if he thought that might damage Draco in some way. But Draco still remembered the way he had chanted the spell when Draco begged him to stop.

It had been necessary, Draco supposed. Grudgingly. The thing inside him evidently _had _been killing him and needed to be pulled out. But through the fever and the way it clouded his memories, Draco could still remember how Harry had hurt him.

It had made it far harder to trust Harry than it used to be.

Taking his anger out on Harry was useless, though. He had been doing what he thought he had to to save Draco's life, which meant he would do it again if he thought he had to. So Draco was determined to use that anger in a different way, to find the _one _person he could still be angry at in the form of Ernhardt and cling to the rage. _Then _there was the chance that he might do something productive with it.

But to know whether he had the right to hate Ernhardt, he needed to see that file.

"Harry," he said finally, when Harry had tried to give him a third cup of tea and a second slice of toast. "Enough. You said that we would look at the file as soon as we got back inside the house, and that was over an hour ago." He put down his teacup and fixed Harry with a gaze as cool and commanding as he could make it. "Unless you have some reason to keep me from looking at it?"

Harry took in his breath and held it. He was staring at the file. Draco went on staring at him in response, until Harry sighed, bowed his head, and gave in.

"I just don't want you to be disappointed in case the information you want isn't in here," he muttered, and reached for the file.

"I have to see it to find out whether it is or not," Draco snapped, and took the file from Harry's hands with a speed that he knew stung. "Thank you."

Harry opened his mouth, closed it, and picked up his teacup, sitting with his legs crossed as though that would help him concentrate.

Draco turned to the top page of the file.

The first piece of evidence was the kind of simple record that the Ministry put together for all their employees, listing name and birthdate and schooling, appearance and surviving family. Still, remembering what Athright had said about Thacker's supposedly spotless reputation, Draco doubted it was the Aurors who had assembled this file.

Draco scanned the information intently. It looked as though Thacker, if he was still alive, would be in his late sixties. Perhaps early seventies, as the birthdate had a question mark by it. No death date listed, Draco noted, but then, it didn't sound as though any of Athright's sources were any too sure about Thacker.

_All the more reason for not trusting her. _

But Draco had already gone down that road, and he could admit that he had no real reason not to trust Athright. He studied the list of known strengths instead, noting in passing that the man had, or was believed to have, no relatives left living.

_Known to have studied Dark Arts, ritual magic, human Transfiguration, Potions brewing—area of specialty: Blood-Replenishing Potions—and defensive shields. Little proficiency noted in Occlumency/Legilimency. Passable proficiency noted in Astronomy, Compulsion, basic Arithmancy. Rumored to be skilled in animal capture and dissection._

Draco swallowed. It wasn't proof, but it was a few more slender straws in the building of the bridge that Harry wanted to raise. Thacker might have known enough compulsion magic to force Ernhardt past any hesitations he might have had, and he had expertise in at least one tricky potion involving blood. And there was the animal dissection bit. Had he practiced on animals, on compelling them to hold still and extracting their blood, before he had poured the blood down Ernhardt's throat?

But even then, Ernhardt might have come to him and drunk infected blood on his own, at his own insistence, the way that other people they knew had. Ernhardt was certainly crying in the vision Draco had taken from the bones, but it could have been from the unexpected pain.

Draco closed his eyes and curled his fingers in the page of the file. If Harry murmured a warning about crinkling or bending the paper, Draco didn't hear him.

_Or it could be exactly as it seems, which is certainly the more likely and logical explanation. Why am I so set on deciding that Ernhardt wasn't originally a victim anyway? Like Harry says, we can hate him for all the crimes he committed later, crimes for which I'll never believe that he wasn't responsible._

There was no reason for him to try and pursue this theory so strongly but his own emotions. Even when he'd learned from the bones with the spell wasn't enough evidence to make necromancy worthwhile. He would be _furious_ if he'd learned that Harry had performed that spell or one like it on the small chance of learning more about an enemy.

But he was the one who had found the parchment with Thacker's name, too, and that at least entitled him to the look at the evidence that other people had brought him. He opened his eyes and looked.

The next piece of parchment below the top one was a letter that Athright had apparently received from someone who knew Thacker. Draco settled down to read it, handing the rest of the folder to Harry. He didn't think he'd imagined Harry's tiny sigh of relief.

Draco ignored it for now. He might be able to admit that he was—well, _probably _was—wrong about Ernhardt, but that didn't mean he had forgotten what Harry had done, the pain he'd caused Draco, in the attempt to cure him.

The letter began with a salutation to "Diana," rather than Diane, Athright, an inconsistency that Draco silently noted. Then it launched straight into a description of Thacker, ink letters as slanted and blobbed as though the person had written them on the run.

_Thacker is a subtle mind, but an obsessed one. When he became interested in something, he studied it to the outer boundary, until he had learned all that there was to know. He would not halt because of legal limits or practical ones._

_He thought blood of particular importance and interest, certainly worth more than the interest that wizarding society has often accorded it. He researched how to restore blood to bodies, and how to remove it. He often experimented on animals, but he was wont to say that there was nothing like wizarding blood for sheer power. He was fascinated by ancient theories that power was literally transmitted in the blood, and especially that as long as someone was a direct descendant of a powerful wizard, one could do everything that ancestor had done. One might even do great deeds if one was not a direct descendant, as long as the relationship was not too far distant (Thacker considered great-nephews and great-nieces, and cousins in the second degree, the outer limits to make such a claim reasonable). _

_I do not know the family that Thacker came from, but I knew the family he claimed to be a part of. It is my opinion that he used a Memory Charm to make the family think they had raised him. They grew vague when asked for details about his childhood, and seemed to be in fear or awe of him more than they were proud of him. Such a contention does not equal proof, but it was convincing to me on the rare occasions that I saw him interact with his supposed parents and sister._

_These supposed parents were Henry and Grace Thacker, both Muggles, of the county of Surrey. His sister—or half-sister; there was speculation in the family that Henry was not her father—was Gwendolen Arlow, a witch of such little talent that she was not invited to Hogwarts. She married a Squib named Edgar Appleton._

_I have not seen Thacker in years. I do not know where he is now, or if he is still alive. In truth, it would surprise me; he pressed so hard on the borders of Dark magic, and with so little caution, that I think such magic might have consumed him long since. _

_Please do not contact me with questions about him again. I have no other knowledge of him, or if he is still among the living. I have given you all the names I know, and I do not know where his sister and her husband are, whether they live, or whether they would have anything to add to what I have said._

The letter wasn't signed.

Draco exhaled hard. He would have liked to question Athright's contact himself, but he supposed there was a good reason for the lack of signature and the utter lack of any identifying detail beyond the handwriting of the letter (which was probably disguised in and of itself). At least the letter gave them something they hadn't had before.

Although…

Draco ran the crease of the letter thoughtfully down his finger. A Memory Charm used on Muggles when one wasn't a Ministry-designated Obliviator was usually cause for serious investigation. Draco had always thought it was because of the fear that someone would start claiming to be an Obliviator and stain the Ministry's reputation rather than from any true ethical concerns, but it was still a legitimate point.

Either the letter-writer was wrong about Thacker having convinced this Muggle-and-Squib family that he was one of their own through the use of Memory Charms, or he had never mentioned his suspicions to the Ministry.

_Or perhaps the Ministry knew? _

Draco narrowed his eyes a little and stared down at the letter again. That was a possibility, wasn't it? Always a possibility. It wouldn't be the first time that the Ministry had allowed someone with questionable taste in and practice of magic to exist because that person had offered the right amount of bribery, or been useful in some way.

Athright hadn't known about Thacker's involvement in other kinds of magic, but then, Athright had been an extremely straightforward Auror, not the sort of person someone would _expect _to know about things like this.

Draco sighed. _And everything leads back to the Ministry. Can we learn anything without asking Warren and Jenkins, or trying to find someone we can bribe to help a pair of famous fugitives? _

"Draco?"

Draco looked up. Harry was frowning slightly and holding out the top sheet of parchment. Draco accepted it back and glanced from it to Harry's face, wondering what about the relatively bland information there could make Harry look like that.

"Is there any chance," Harry began slowly, "that Thacker's bones might be down in that Potions lab, do you think?"

The jolt that passed through Draco seemed to start under his breastbone and speed through his body to his legs. He sat up in the bed. "What?" he drawled. "Necromancy is somehow acceptable when you do it?"

"Nothing like that," Harry said, and held up a hand as though he could shield himself from the weight of Draco's gaze that way. "I just wondered—do you think it's likely Ernhardt killed him? Or did he die from some other aspect of Dark magic that he was playing around with? Maybe he even Transfigured himself and couldn't change back. I've heard of people doing that when they're trying to become Animagi and end up trapped as animals without their wands. He might have lived out the rest of his life as a—a slug or something, with the mind of a slug."

Draco had to smile. "A slug would suit him," he agreed. "But even if some of the bones in the lab are his, I don't see how we could tell without going through them and casting those spells on every one."

Harry licked his lips. "You think the bones that showed you that vision might be his? They sure as hell weren't Ernhardt's."

"Yes, I _did _think that," Draco said, sitting up more, and wincing when he realized that he was almost shouting. His throat still hurt. He dimly remembered Harry pulling the Dark magic out of him through his neck. But he didn't want to think about that, so he shuttled his mind away from it and continued. "But you were so against the spell that I thought I was misremembering, and we didn't obtain any useful information from it after all."

* * *

_Here we go again._

Harry stiffened himself for this battle, though. He had let Draco have his own way for too long, because he felt guilty about the spell he'd had to cast.

But without it, Draco would have died. The pain he'd suffered as a result was horrible, yes, but Harry remained firm in his conviction that death was worse.

"We obtained a single vision," he said, and held Draco's eyes despite the way he wanted to squirm. A moment later, seeing the stubbornness take light in Draco's eyes, he lost even the impulse to squirm. He clasped his hands together and held them that way as he flung the words at Draco. "The person in the vision was probably Thacker, but all we can really see is his height and a little bit of his face—not even enough to identify him. And Athright sent us some photographs, so we don't need _that. _We got everything we needed from the parchment that you found. You _did _find something valuable, Draco. It just wasn't in that spell."

"You have a prejudice against necromancy." Draco's eyes were still too bright, and Harry didn't think it was with the lingering remnants of fever.

"I have a prejudice against any magic that seems to kill the vast majority of the people who work with it, _yeah_," Harry snapped.

Draco blinked. "Macgeorge is still alive," he said at last.

"Because she was lucky and because she hadn't been using it that long, yeah," Harry said starkly. "That doesn't mean I'm going to be very happy when _you _want to do something using it."

Draco's head went back and his eyes were so pale and hot that Harry winced. "You can take risks, but I can't," Draco whispered bitterly. "Isn't that always the way it is?"

"No," Harry said, leaning forwards and taking Draco's hand, although Draco tugged fretfully at his hold as though he didn't believe Harry meant it. "I just—I've been trying to reduce the risks lately, Draco, since I got captured in front of the Manor. That's why I confronted the Montgomerys with threats instead of trying to battle them. And I wouldn't use that spell, either. I don't want any necromancy. I was asking—I want to know what happened to Ernhardt, who Thacker was. But I would walk away and ask you to come to Italy or Egypt or Australia with me if I thought necromancy was the only way we could ever obtain the truth. I value you more than I value my Auror job or getting back in the good graces of the Ministry."

"Or even changing the definition of twisted so that innocent people aren't killed anymore?" Draco whispered.

Harry nodded slowly. He hadn't wanted to think of it that way, but of course it was inevitable that Draco would. "Yes. I want the killing to stop, I want innocent people who aren't full twisted left unpunished for it, but I want you alive and with me more."

Draco closed his eyes. Maybe no other reassurance would have comforted him, Harry thought, but this one did the trick. A few tears leaked down from his eyes, but he made no move to wipe them away or stifle them.

Harry looked away, to let him do what he needed to do in privacy nonetheless, and when he looked back, Draco's eyes were open and soft and shining again.

"All right," Draco agreed. "We'll learn what else we need to know through other means than necromancy. We haven't even looked through the whole file yet." He turned back to the folder in front of them.

Harry thought about letting go of Draco's hand so that Draco wouldn't notice how limp with relief he'd become, but when he tried, Draco's hand just tightened.

_And who has the right to know it, if he doesn't?_


	14. Written on the Skin

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fourteen—Written on the Skin_

"I don't know if we'll find anything else by looking through the lab. I think we should go back to Grimmauld Place and decide what to do with the Montgomerys."

Draco, still looking through the file on Jared Thacker, didn't seem to have heard him at first. Harry had just opened his mouth to repeat himself when Draco slammed the folder down on the table that Kreacher had cleaned and brought to them, and turned around to stare at Harry.

"So you would recommend just giving up," he said, so flatly that Harry winced. "Before we know anything more than a single name. Before we've examined the cellar and the other corners of the house for information on Ernhardt."

"Before we go crazy!" Harry snapped. "Do you really think that you would have thought it was a good idea to use the necromancy spell if we were still in Grimmauld Place?"

"Unless you have a secret room full of all the bones of your failed experiments, then no," Draco said, and cocked his head, and smiled winsomely. "I wouldn't have thought it a good idea to use the spell in a place where _there's nothing it can do._"

"I don't like this house," Harry continued, doggedly. "Neither does Kreacher. It's true that it hasn't influenced us much so far, but the longer we stay here, the worse it'll get."

Draco turned and began adjusting the papers inside the folder, making sure that every piece of parchment squared exactly right with the piece beneath it. "You don't know that for sure," he said. "You don't know that it's had _any _effect on us so far. And wasn't this the best refuge that Jenkins could come up with? And the Aurors know that Grimmauld Place is yours and are ready to stake it out if we come back there again. And we can't learn everything about Ernhardt there that we can here. And it's convenient to the cliffs, which is the only place that Athright knows how to meet us." He turned around in his chair and lowered his voice. "Not to mention that Jenkins is supposed to be coming with more information on Thacker tonight."

"We could Apparate back here and pick up the folder or whatever she has for us if we needed to." Harry felt like snapping again, but he kept his voice low and clear instead. He didn't want Draco having any excuse to ignore him. "I want to get out of this place because it makes me feel low and depressed, no matter how safe it is."

He paused, but Draco was studying the file and once again doing his ignoring act. Harry brought a weapon into play that he hadn't wanted to. "You ought to understand. Malfoy Manor probably felt like that to you when you went back in there."

* * *

Draco felt the stiffness starting in his shoulders and working its way across his neck and up to his head, as though he was turning to stone. He wanted to leap up and snarl at Harry, and he wanted to remain here, silent as a gravestone, and never look at him again.

How _could _Harry bring his parents up right now?

Draco wanted to leave Cuthbert's Corner, yes. But he didn't want to do it until they had some concrete information on Ernhardt in hand, some way to show that he had indeed committed the crimes that he'd been accused of and it had been the Ministry's fault for not investigating their Head Auror more closely, not Harry and Draco's for investigating that Head Auror.

They had no chance to find that kind of evidence in Grimmauld Place. He had explained this again and again, and Harry still didn't seem to understand.

Well, he would just have to turn around and explain it again.

Draco turned, a patient smile on his lips that froze as he saw Kreacher pop into the room and wave his hands frantically at them.

"Masters is being leaving!" he squeaked. "Masters is being _fleeing!_" He began to hop up and down and tear at his ears. Draco winced as he watched Kreacher ripping what looked like handfuls of hair out.

"What?" Harry was on his feet, reaching around Draco's shoulders and the bed as if he thought that he could calm Kreacher down somehow. "What do you mean? Why do we need to go?"

Kreacher abruptly turned towards the door and hunched over. Draco would have thought that it meant he was down and defeated, but he heard the rumble in the back of Kreacher's throat, and suspected he was bracing himself the way a warrior would before the charge of an enemy.

"Because the bloody letters is being coming," he whispered.

Draco heard another sound then, one like rushing water. He drew his wand, even as Harry caught his arm in a hard grip and began backing towards the door that led into the bathroom. He already had his wand drawn, Draco saw with an ache of envy. Sometimes it seemed like he would never be as quick and as skilled and as dangerous as Harry.

"We can't Apparate from inside here," Harry said quietly into Draco's ear. "And from the way Kreacher's facing, it's blocking the only doorway out."

"I already knew that," Draco said, although he shook the envy away and clenched Harry's arm in turn when Harry stiffened as if he would withdraw from touching Draco. "What I think matters is whether we _can _face this, or whether we're better off lifting shields and trying to resist it that way."

Harry relaxed and leaned around Draco to speak to Kreacher. It was strange, Draco thought, watching him, that Harry had been a leader most of his life, but he was happiest when he could follow orders instead of having to lead himself. "What do you think, Kreacher? Can we hold this back with shields?"

Kreacher turned around. His eyes were so large and watery that Draco could see his reflection in them. Kreacher bowed his head a second later as if he couldn't bear to continue to match gazes with them.

"It not being mattering," he whispered. "It being too late. Kreacher will help masters."

Draco thought he might have said more, but the persistent rumbling from the corridor had grown too loud to ignore. Draco looked up—

And saw the tide of blood washing towards them, thick and persistent as madness.

* * *

Harry had no idea where all that blood had come from, except for Kreacher's muttering about the bloody letters on the walls, but he didn't think it mattered. The blood was heavier than water, and Harry could see sharp shapes moving in it that made him think that the blood wasn't alone, that other things bubbled and slimed and shrieked beneath that surface.

He drew his wand and put himself between Draco and the blood.

Draco tugged at his shoulder. Harry knew what he would say without turning to see. He would say that they should face the danger together, side-by-side, and that Harry was a fool to take this all on himself.

And Harry could admit the justice of that, but he could also admit that part of him had frozen solid and begun to ache the minute he had to torture Draco with that spell that would relieve the pain of the necromancy possession. He wanted to do this for Draco, to show that he could still protect as well as hurt him.

Draco tugged at his shoulder. Harry transferred his weight to his left leg, letting Draco pull at that, and lifted his wand with his right hand and the right side of his body, barking out, "_Adsero!_"

The spell flamed up from inside him, spun out along his arm, and ended up exploding into a shield between them and the blood, a shield in the form of a great, crouched red-and-gold lion, paws extended on either side of itself and mouth open. The oncoming blood poured into the lion's mouth and vanished, and so did some of the creatures that swam under the surface, torn by magical teeth and consumed by the fire that made the lion up in the space of a second.

Draco made a soft little noise behind him. Harry reached back and laid his hand on Draco's shoulder, pressing hard enough that he felt Draco wince. "Was that worth letting me defend you?" he asked, without turning around. The lion was stalking back and forth, but had already faded a little, and Harry poured more strength into the spell. The lion shimmered brightly again, and some of the shadows that had leaped through the door—Harry thought they had swum in the blood until now—shrank back.

"How did you _do _that?" Draco whispered. "I've never heard of that spell before."

"Sometimes Light wizards possess useful knowledge," Harry said. "I told you that before, when I helped you get through the wards on Malfoy Manor." He felt Draco press painfully on his wrist for a moment, but he said nothing, and Harry turned, very briefly, to grin at him. "Feeling up to joining the battle now?"

"Move." Draco shoved at him, and Harry stepped aside and let him up and into the thick of the fight. The shadows dashed into the room, and the lion stuck out a lazy forepaw and speared them to death. But there were other creatures writhing in the corners, their bodies made of bloodied angles that resembled the shapes of the letters, and Harry couldn't keep this one spell going forever; it would leave him too weak to maintain any other defensive shields.

Draco swept his wand along in front of him and hissed an incantation between his teeth, quickly and quietly. A few of the shadows collapsed, as though deflated from the inside. Harry looked at Draco and raised his eyebrows.

Draco shrugged and looked far too pleased with himself. "Trade secret of a Dark wizard."

Harry sniffed and began casting more ordinary curses and charms and hexes at the shadow-creatures that were breaking through the door now. "Light wizards know more than Dark wizards think they do."

"Not hard at all," Draco retorted, and took a quick dancing step to get around the thick-bodied thing that was breaking through the doorway. It had paws and a mane and open jaws, like a distorted reflection of Harry's lion, but Draco stuck his wand through its body, and it expired, kicking and giving a sound that wasn't a growl because it wasn't deep enough. "And besides, would you say that you're still a Light wizard?"

Harry grinned as he cast a Blasting Curse that ripped straight through the center of an oncoming blood-wave and reduced it a splatter against the far wall. It seemed that the house's unnatural defenses were growing weaker, if one ordinary spell could do that to them. "This sounds like a loss either way for you, Draco. If I'm not really Light, then you lose the chance to tell me I'm stupid. If I am, then you're wrong right now."

Draco sneered at him and leaped over something dark green, with multiple heads, before it could tear off his leg. "Only a Light wizard thinks in that limited way. But then, only a Light wizard would think he could still be one despite using Dark Arts."

"When I use Dark Arts to _survive_…" Harry began. He had to break off the lecture to destroy another wave of blood, though, and that left Draco able to slide in and insert himself into the conversation, smoothly.

"When you use Dark Arts to survive, then you might as well use them in other portions of your life, too. Besides, unless you can make the point that your survival includes mine, you've mostly used them for other purposes." He tossed Harry a bright smile and the corridor a glowing hex that destroyed something like a huge centipede scrambling towards them.

Harry shook his head, feeling his lips tug, knowing he was on the edge of laughter. There seemed to be nothing to do but to turn and keep chopping apart the creatures that crawled towards them, with multiple legs and stings in their tails, with jaws so wide and bright that the corridor torches glinted off their teeth.

And then there were no more.

Harry stopped in the middle of the empty bedroom and looked around. Draco limped towards him, leaning heavily on the bed for a second. Then he stood back up and shook out his leg, and to Harry's relief, managed to support his own weight.

"The house decided to stop testing us?" Harry asked. "Just like that?"

Draco shook his head, clearly believing it no more than Harry did. Then something scraped towards the door of the bedroom, and they both whirled around at the same time, backs together, wands out. Harry felt a little pulse of pride that they were able to do that even considering their recent arguments.

The scrape was Kreacher. He bowed solemnly to both of them; at least, if he was bowing to Draco first, then Harry couldn't really see it. "Masters is being coming into the corridor," he said solemnly. "There is something that masters must be seeing."

* * *

Draco stopped and stared around the corridor. He knew something was different, but it took him a long time—far longer than it should have—to realize what it was.

The walls were free of the bloody letters that had formed Ernhardt's code. Here and there he could see dark smudges, where part of the writing might have faded, but he couldn't make out what they had been even when he went right up to one and squinted at it. The letters had apparently turned into the tide of blood and defensive beasts that had come at them along with any other Dark magic hanging about the corridor.

Draco took a long breath. Yes, the air tested fresher and cleaner than it had before.

"Did you do this, Kreacher?" Harry asked quietly. He was looking around, over his shoulder and up at the ceiling as though something up there could explain the disappearance of the letters. Kreacher shook his head so hard that his ears rebounded off his skull with little snapping sounds.

"Masters is doing it," he said. "When bloody letters be transforming, Masters be defeating the transformation."

_It certainly seems so, _Draco thought. He wondered if this might be a reason to remain longer in Cuthbert's Corner. If they had exhausted the house's defenses, then it had nothing else to attack them with, and it belonged more surely to them.

But this was only one floor, Draco remembered a second later. No, they couldn't stay here. They should leave, as Harry had been arguing. At least in Grimmauld Place, the threat that might come through the front door would be Aurors, and they knew how to deal with and fight them.

"I'm glad that we survived," Harry said carefully, turning to look over his shoulder at Draco, as if Draco might suspect that Harry had a death wish otherwise. "But I really think that we should leave now."

Draco nodded, and had the satisfaction of seeing Harry's face light up like a firework show before he turned to Kreacher. "You can pack up the rest of our things?" he asked. He only intended to take their wands, the clothes they wore, and the file on Jared Thacker with them for right now.

Kreacher bowed, and bowed again. "Masters is good, masters is wise," he said in a voice like a bubbling stream. "Yes, Kreacher is bringing the rest of masters' things as soon as masters be leaving!" And he gave them an unsubtle shove in the direction of the front door.

Harry caught Draco's hand as he passed. Draco smiled and kissed the back of Harry's, then ducked into their bedroom to retrieve the file.

* * *

Harry sensed the difference as soon as he stepped into Grimmauld Place.

He stood still, nevertheless, because he hadn't spent as much time in the house as he had in his own flat and it was possible that he might be mistaken. Draco came up behind him and opened his mouth, but Harry held up a hand. Amazingly, Draco fell silent instead of immediately starting an argument.

The hum of the wards was different, Harry discerned. There had been a background noise all the time they'd been in Grimmauld Place before this, because a place under such severe protection _did _tend to hum, but this time, it sounded as though someone had adjusted the noise a bit. Lowered it, Harry finally decided. The wards had felt the same when he and Draco stepped in, had looked the same from the outside, but someone had weakened them.

And considering who was hunting him and Draco right now, there was really only one viable candidate for the people who could have done so.

Harry caught Draco's eye and gestured sharply with his head to the right. Draco nodded and faded in that direction. Harry cleared his throat and called, "Kreacher?"

Kreacher popped in and took a suspicious glance around. Harry caught his eyes and held them, and Kreacher beamed and nodded, his ears bouncing off his skull again. "Master is wanting a pot of tea?" he asked, louder than normal. "Kreacher can be getting those things for himself, yes indeed he can!"

Harry managed to hold back his chuckle. Kreacher would never make an actor, but it was possible that he would fool whoever was hiding and listening. "Yes, please," he said, and made his way towards the kitchen. Kreacher vanished in front of him.

Harry saw the tripwire ward before he struck it, the thin, glistening silver line stretched across the entrance to the kitchen. Kreacher, with house-elf magic, had hopped right over it, as the Aurors had probably anticipated he would do. Harry hesitated a second. The people listening to him had heard him talking about tea, knew where he would be heading, and didn't know he would be aware of them yet. Was he better off striking the ward with a spell and yelling, to preserve the fiction that he didn't know they were here, or backing off for right now and confronting the Aurors upstairs?

Before he could decide, he heard the heavy noise of a body falling down the stairs, and a yell. Decision made, Harry reversed himself and dashed towards the nearest staircase. The crackle of spells made the house shake.

* * *

_Ten Aurors. All for us? _

Draco tried to keep the tone of his thoughts bright and bubbling, to hide even from himself how shaken he was when he saw the immense number of Aurors hiding upstairs. He had seen them at once, when he cast a spell that would let him see through the shadows and darkness into the rooms without lighting a _Lumos. _

Ten Aurors. And while he and Harry were skilled, they were also tired from the battle against the tide of blood and defending creatures in Cuthbert's Corner. Draco didn't think they could take more than ten of them. There might be twelve, if they had found and freed Montgomery and Hannah from their hiding places in the attic.

Then Draco smiled. Yes, there were a lot of Aurors, but they hadn't thought about _where _they were. And Draco and Harry had the advantage of surprise.

Draco stood there in silence for a moment, then touched his wand to his wrist and cast a nonverbal _Diffindo_. The blood welled up from the cut in a second. Draco flinched from the sting, but since that didn't make any sound, it was permissible.

Then Draco knelt and dripped the blood in a long line down the side of the stairs. At the same time, he whispered, "I am a member of the House of Black, and I ask shelter from my ancestors." It was a spell he had learned for Malfoy Manor, with the name of his father's family substituted for his mother's, but Draco thought it would also work here.

The walls were silent, but even that was different from the lowered, almost-silent hum of wards that Draco had sensed when they first came into Grimmauld Place. Then a black mist rose from the walls, a shadowy, soft, obscure thing, that touched Draco's face and felt like nothing at all, before it blew up the stairs and into the rooms where Draco had seen the Aurors crouching.

Draco flattened his back against the wall he stood in front of and watched, his head turned and his hands clutching at the wall before he could think to stop himself.

Then he forced himself to relax. Whether or not this had as much deadly effect as it would have in the Manor, at least he could count on the mist to distract the Aurors—

Shrieks rang out from above him. Draco jumped, and then moved out of the way as he saw an Auror reel towards the top of the stairs. His hands were up and battering at something that moved in front of him. He didn't appear to strike anything but air, but Draco could see the curls of the mist, and they tugged and blew and snagged on the walls, anchoring themselves there for a moment before spinning tight around the Auror's face and throat.

The Auror gave another high shriek, a sound of piercing pain and fear, and then his head sagged to the side as the mist broke his neck. By then, he was close enough to the top of the stairs that the way the black tendrils unanchored themselves and came free sent him spinning down them. Draco watched the sliding body and licked his lips. He hadn't thought the weapon he called would react that harshly, and he hadn't thought in terms of _killing _any of the people who had once been comrades in the Corps.

But the Ministry had sent the Aurors after them. And Draco should have thought in terms of it, because the Aurors who poured down after the body all had their wands lifted and their bodies surging like lean hunting hounds. Draco knew they wouldn't hold back.

So Draco strung a tripwire ward along the stairs, and made the first ones sprawl. That left the two or three behind them off-balance, and Draco cast Blasting Curses at them, aiming to break their legs and their wand arms, to put them out of commission.

Harry's voice rose from behind him, chanting the Disarming Spell like a prayer, and wand after wand soared towards him.

Draco smiled, beginning to think that they would win this battle after all, especially when Kreacher appeared in front of them and began laying about with a frying pan.

But that was before one Auror near the back stood tall and lobbed something down the stairs that shone like fire, then dived aside. Draco, his eyes full of white light, groped back and found Harry's arm, which supported him, clutching his waist.

At least, that was what happened for a minute, before the stairway exploded.


	15. Heat of Battle

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_Chapter Fifteen—Heat of Battle_

Harry recognized the burning little device the instant that the Auror on the stairs flung it.

It had been one used and tested in the Heliodorus Corps when Harry had still been a part of it. The weapon was meant to act like a lightning strike, the contained magic in it mimicking a Muggle bomb. But because magic never worked exactly like technology, and even more, Harry thought, because the wizards who had designed it weren't familiar enough with Muggle technology to recognize all the differences, it had ended up being a "lightning strike" that could hit someone's magical core.

Right now, it was just light and noise. But anyone who cast a spell around it in the next minute would have their strength permanently reduced.

Draco's hand was rising, his wand clasped in it. Harry knew that, even though the whiteness still dominated his vision and he couldn't see, because he felt Draco's arm moving next to his ribs. Harry slammed his arm down on top of Draco's instead, and Draco made a sharp, pained noise and struggled against him.

"Damages your magical core if you cast a spell in the minute after it," Harry hissed into Draco's ear, not having time for more complicated explanations. He trusted this one would suffice. After all, Draco believed in him.

He thought.

Harry stifled the memory, again, of the spell he'd had to cast to relieve Draco from necromantic possession, and thought instead of the way he and Draco had fought the blood-tide in Cuthbert's Corner, and rolled them again and again, until they hit the edge of a wall. Harry reached up with one hand and felt around, and recognized it. They were lying along the wall beneath the place where Walburga's portrait had hung.

And from the curses Harry could hear drifting from the direction of the staircase, both magical and otherwise, some of the Aurors hadn't known the truth about their own weapon, and had tried to cast spells. Harry and Draco had a few seconds, perhaps as much as a minute, before anyone came after them.

Harry snapped his eyes open, ignoring the way the afterimages seared across his vision. So what? He could see enough to be going on with, and he shook Draco's shoulder roughly when Draco whimpered and tried to curl into him. "Come on. The minute when we can't use magic will be up in a few seconds."

"You're keeping track?" Draco raised his head and turned towards Harry. Harry bit his lip so he wouldn't laugh at the soot or dirt around Draco's lips and his hair standing out from his head. From the way Draco narrowed his eyes, he had probably sensed Harry's amusement anyway.

"Yes, in the back of my head," Harry said. "And from seeing those weapons used before. Come _on_." He hauled on the side of Draco's shoulder and got him on his feet. They crept towards the kitchen. Harry flicked his wand and disarmed the tripwire ward there before he thought about it. Then he flinched, but there was no sharp draining on his magical core like the victims of the bomb had reported. Besides, from the reactions of the Aurors down the corridor, it was painful.

"And you call me reckless," Draco muttered as he stumbled into the kitchen, but he caught the wall in time to keep from making any noise.

"I didn't do it _recently_," Harry said, and ignored the way Draco said something about the necromancy spell. He pitched his voice low enough that Draco twisted his head towards him, but Harry was sure no one else would hear. "Kreacher?"

There was a slight disturbance of air near him, and then Kreacher was standing there, the most silent Harry had ever seen a house-elf be. His hair was bedraggled around his head and his eyes were wide with rage, but when he saw both of them, he closed them and flung his arms around Draco's legs.

"Masters is being all right," Kreacher whispered, and although he didn't shout, Harry felt as though all the volume he _would _have added into the words had gone into intensity. Harry could feel his bones shivering.

"Yes, we are," Harry said, bending over. "But not for long. Is there anything you can tell us about the house's protections, Kreacher? Anything we can trigger?"

Kreacher shook his head and snapped his nose up towards Draco. "Master Draco Malfoy is already triggering the most powerful."

Harry blinked, because he didn't know what that was, but it had probably slowed down at least one Auror, and they didn't have time to debate about it. "All right," he said. "Then can you distract the Aurors and herd them into the drawing room?"

"Why the drawing room?" Draco asked, with almost no breath behind the words.

"Because that's the place where I'm going to set up my trap," Harry said, and ignored the way Draco's brows pulled together. He had trusted Draco enough not to ask lots of questions; now Draco would have to trust him the same way. "Can you do it, Kreacher?"

Kreacher executed a clumsy bow that made Harry's throat tighten and his eyes prickle. "Kreachers can be doing it," he whispered. "Kreacher is doing anything to be serving masters."

Harry nodded. "Good. Then go."

Kreacher vanished. A few seconds later, Harry heard a loud yell from the direction of the staircase. "What the hell is that thing?"

Clear light played along the floor, making Harry smile. Whatever it was, it wasn't a spell effect he had seen before, and he thought the Aurors would be intrigued enough to follow it, especially since they didn't know a house-elf was the one making it.

"Come on," he whispered to Draco, and slung Draco's arm around his shoulders, turning him smoothly towards the drawing room. Draco shook himself free, though, and glared at Harry through narrowed eyes.

"I don't need help walking now that I can _see_," he said.

Harry nodded and stepped back with his hands in the air. If Draco was going to be like that, then it was best to treat him as if he had completely recovered. "Come on, then," he whispered, and set off, walking carefully into the drawing room.

They didn't see any Aurors on the way, though. Whatever Kreacher's distraction was, it had occupied all of them.

Harry paused when they came into the drawing room, and glanced around with a faint smile. Yes, it was the way he remembered it. More to the point, the sharp corners of the bookshelves and the mantle were the way he had remembered them. Harry looked thoughtfully at the walls, then nodded. There were a few cracks in them, but none that were big enough to threaten his plan. Even in the derelict condition that Grimmauld Place had fallen into, most wizarding buildings retained their integrity.

"What are you doing?" Draco asked from behind him.

Harry drew his wand. "I'm going to make the drawing room into a Ricochet Chamber," he said, and cocked his head at Draco. "You might want to wait outside. I never managed to learn to cast the spell to exempt anyone but myself from it."

Draco's face went slack, and then he shook his head, said, "Only you," and fell back beyond the far doorway, the one that didn't lead towards the staircase, but back into one of the maze of twisting storerooms that Mrs. Weasley had partially cleaned out and Harry hadn't touched yet.

Harry leaned his wand against his hand and began to build the chant in his mind. It was too powerful a spell for him to cast nonverbally, but he knew he would have only a few seconds after the Aurors heard him chanting, and it was best to make sure that he had every word ready at his fingertips before then.

Finally, he was satisfied that he knew what to do, and hefted his wand. "_Contra sonitus_," he began.

The spell billowed out around the room and settled into the sharp corners Harry had noted before, the mantle and the bookshelves. Overhead, he heard the Aurors' startled cries and the reversing sound as their footsteps began to head down the stairs.

Harry aimed his wand at the nearest corner and spoke again. "_Contra magicum_."

The footsteps were very near now. This was part of the trouble in casting the spell, that it needed absolute concentration, but once someone realized you were casting it, they would probably try to interfere in one way or another. Harry didn't intend to let himself be hurried this time. He aimed his wand at the wall even as the air around him began to be charged with silent ringing, as though someone was frantically swinging bells he couldn't hear.

"_Contra mundum._"

The power of the spell settled with the final words, like dust to the floor, just as the first wizards charged through the doorway.

Harry lifted his hands, his expression as innocent as he could make it, but with his hand came his wand. The wizard in the lead of course cast a spell at him, a Blasting Curse, which let Harry know how seriously the Ministry was taking this. They might not want to kill him, but they didn't care much if they crippled him.

The curse deflected from the air in front of Harry and rebounded, taking a chunk off the middle of the mantle. The three other spells that the Aurors had cast before they realized what happened bounced back, too, and knocked one of them cold. The others tried to yell out instructions or incantations, but their voices rebounded in the same way, and echoes filled the air, crippling everyone except Harry. Harry hoped that Draco was safely beyond range once he had left the room. It would be inconvenient to have him staggering.

One of the Aurors dropped his wand and lunged at Harry. But Harry had managed to cast all three lines of the spell, not just the first two parts that repelled incantations and magic, and he lurched off-balance, landing on the floor. Harry smiled and Summoned his wand—as the caster, he was immune to the effects of the Ricochet Chamber—then Stunned him.

There were other wizards behind that to worry about, but the smart ones had figured out by now that they couldn't use magic against him or attack him physically. They rearranged themselves in their line, shuffling. Harry watched them and waited for another inspiration to strike. He made a gesture with his hand low behind his back, which he hoped Draco would interpret the right way—go and circle around the other side so you can attack them from behind. A greater silence beyond the drawing room a minute later let him hope that Draco had done as Harry had requested.

The nearest witch finally edged enough out to the side that Harry had to look at her. It was Lauren Hale, his partner before Lionel.

Harry blinked once, and then watched her steadily. He wondered why she had come along. Wounded pride? Assigned by the Ministry? Wanted the chance to finally see him stuck in a cell somewhere?

Hale held up her hands in slow, exaggerated motion. Harry gave her a bloody-minded smile. Yes, she would have found by now that she couldn't do anything to him, and any word she spoke would turn into meaningless echoes. If she intended to give him a gesture of surrender, though, he would graciously accept it.

Hale folded her fingers down into the center of her palms, moving them with the care that someone would near an open flame. Then she flashed her fingers up again, turning her hands fully towards Harry, and slowly tucked the same fingers down again.

Harry thought he understood. Ten Aurors had come, and five were down.

Harry shrugged. He would have spoken, but although he could hear the words, the spell would make what he said turn into echoes for Hale, too. He thought the shrug could convey his meaning well enough.

Hale watched him with a frown that went on growing when Harry did nothing. It deepened into a disgusted look that made Harry chuckle, and he didn't really care what his enemies heard. Since when did Hale imagine that he would care about what she wanted, or about wounding Aurors from the Ministry that hunted them?

Hale aimed one finger at him. It took Harry a second to realize that she was pointing to his lightning bolt scar. Then she tapped her left arm, about the place where the Dark Mark would rest, and widened her eyes as though staring at something invisible.

Amusing as it was to watch Hale act this way, with the other Aurors staring at her as if she had gone mad, Harry understood what she was saying and found it tiresome to watch. Yes, he knew the Ministry thought he and Draco were twisted, with their symbols and their flaws. It didn't matter. It hadn't mattered for years, even though most people knew Harry had the "gift" of seeing visions of murders, until the point when it did. The Ministry all over. Inconsistency and incompetence at its finest.

At his sharply-gestured hand slash, Hale stopped acting, but didn't seem disposed to back away. Harry sighed and floated a piece of parchment up on the air, scribbling rapidly on it, then turning it around to face her. Despite the fact that the room was an altered place for them, the Aurors should be able to read it—unless one of them lunged at him and tried to take the parchment away. _The Ministry claims that we're twisted. We're not._

Hale watched him with a brooding frown. Then she dropped straight down to the floor and linked her hands together in the middle of her back. Once again, the other Aurors stared at her.

Harry didn't—especially not when her wand rolled away from her, and she made no attempt to stop it. Of course, the altered nature of the room would have left her staggering drunkenly even if she _had _tried it, but that wasn't the point. She let it fall and go where it would.

And that, combined with the gesture of her hands behind her back, in the position that Auror prisoners were often tied, told Harry what she was doing. She was surrendering, totally. Yielding her wand and promising to let Harry bind her.

On the condition, Harry was sure, that he take her out of the Ricochet Chamber and let her say whatever she was so desperate to tell him.

He didn't have to think about it long. He had worked with Hale long enough to know her skills, and they lay in potions and research. She was a good wizard, but not good enough to cast a wandless, nonverbal spell and rip her hands out of bindings that _he _conjured. If she was completely under his and Draco's control, then they would be able to trust her, to the extent that such trust was still possible.

Harry lowered his wand and stepped up to Hale. She didn't flinch, despite the disconcerting echoes that must have bounced around the room, to her ears. He grabbed her shoulder and tugged her towards the door where Draco waited, ignoring the way that someone tried to stagger after him and ended up walking into the fireplace mantle. His trap would hold the rest of these clowns for a while.

Hale, though, might have something interesting to say.

* * *

Draco found Harry's one-time partner no more intriguing than he had the first time he'd met her. Hale was ice, sitting there with her hands tied behind her back and both wands trained on her. She had glanced at Draco, but although he was the pure-blood between them and Hale valued purity of blood, she had since looked only at Harry.

And she hadn't said whatever she had surrendered to say yet.

Harry didn't seem inclined to rush her. He stood there, in the dim, dilapidated kitchen where he had bound her to the chair, and waited. His breathing was so soft that Draco could hardly hear it. His wand was drawn, but low at his side, bouncing off his leg now and then as if he didn't need it. His gaze hadn't moved from Hale's face yet. Draco had to admit he was impressive.

Maybe Hale had waited as long as she needed to be assured that they wouldn't kill her, because she nodded once and then began. "The Ministry is afraid that you might uncover something it's done."

"Tell us something that we don't know." The boredom, and, it seemed, the truth, startled Hale. Draco saw her sit up and straighten her neck before she became aware that that pulled against her bonds, and that seemed to injure her picture of Perfect Pure-Blood Dignity. She leaned back instead and shook her head a little.

"But you don't know what they're afraid you might uncover," she said.

"We know that they want to blame us for the embarrassment of Ernhardt." Harry's voice was passionless as he answered, something Draco couldn't help but approve of. Their chances of getting real information—assuming Hale had it—were greater if she thought them uninterested in her. "We know that they ignored real twisted in their ranks for a long time because they thought they could be useful. We know they dumped everyone in Socrates Corps that they could who was too ambitious, or too powerful, to do them good, and they let an actual assassin through to come after us."

"An assassin?" From the way Hale squirmed in her chair, this was news to her.

Draco would have held the card to his chest a little longer, but perhaps because Elder was dead, Harry seemed to decide that it was no harm to give her the name. "Elder. Once an Auror with a different Corps, but one who transferred in when they realized that they couldn't count on Draco to restrain me. He'd been hired by the elder Malfoys to kill Draco."

_That _information, Draco thought they could have restrained, but Hale glanced at him once, a keen-eyed look of such largeness that Draco relaxed. She understood what it meant for a pure-blood family to reject an heir, and she disapproved. She seemed to have something of that feeling for family that you got sometimes, among the sheltered ones. The family was more important than anything else, which meant that sins were overlooked, quarrels were patched up, and outsiders were turned away if they asked questions. Rejecting Draco because he had joined the Aurors wasn't a crime Hale would think worthy of his parents forgetting him.

"Yes, I heard something about that," Hale said. "But did you know about the experiments they did?"

Draco was proud of Harry then, for how still he remained, and the blank look he fixed on Hale. Draco wasn't sure that he did as well himself, but luckily for them all, Hale wasn't looking at him. She had leaned forwards in her chair, testing the ropes that bound her a little, and Draco thought now that he knew why she was so interested in Harry's reaction. Draco would hold back from a public crusade, but everyone knew Harry Potter would fight for justice.

Well. They _had _known that, anyway. Draco had to wonder how successful the Ministry had been in twisting the public's perceptions of Harry with the articles they'd published about the hunt for them and Harry's supposed murder of an innocent Head Auror.

"I know that they did plenty of experiments with Corps organization," Harry said. "And at one time, they thought my flaw could be more useful to them than it's proved. They wanted me to try and foresee murders. They didn't know that I can only see something that's definitely going to happen, or at least be attempted, and then only a short time before."

"That's not the kind of experiment I was talking about." Hale was speaking quickly now, looking over her shoulder for a moment as though she thought someone Harry didn't approve of would come through the wards. Considering how the Aurors had weakened them to get through, Draco had to admit that wasn't impossible. "I meant, did you know about their experiments with the blood?"

Draco knew he twitched, then. Hale looked at him for another fleeting glance, and then turned right back to Harry.

Harry made one of those impossible decisions again, springing forwards and leaning on chance in a way that Draco never could. "No. Tell me."

Hale nodded, once, and then said, "They told me about them—_us _about them—because they thought it would make us more eager to hunt you down. And they wanted to give us the impression of being part of something important and secret, I suppose. But while most of the others either accepted it or said that we couldn't rebel against the Ministry without turning into criminals like you two, I don't think it's worthy."

It took Draco a moment to understand what she meant. The Ministry had to be something worthy of serving, for a woman like her. A _pure-blood _like her. Otherwise, you might as well direct all your efforts towards your own family and not give a shit for anyone else.

"Tell me, then." Harry said the words the way he might another spell.

"They used blood," Hale said. "Blood from people, but I don't know who or how much. They told us that blood can give gifts. Give _flaws, _I knew they were talking about, because they had to explain what you were doing _somehow _after Ernhardt died and they didn't keep the twisted that much of a secret. They described experiments with wandless magic and trying to give people wandless magic by having them drink blood."

Draco knew his breath was hissing tightly between his teeth, so loud that he couldn't hear if Harry was in the same state. But Harry again only nodded as though this was expected, and said, "Go on."

"So they had some people drink blood, and some people collect it and give it," Hale said. "They didn't tell us _that _much. But it was obvious that—that they were responsible, somehow, for some of the twisted. Maybe not all of them. Maybe not Ernhardt, or you. I think some of the flaws are natural. But some people drank blood, and some of them went insane, and the Ministry destroyed some of them." She laughed in a scorching way. "_That_, they told us because they wanted to reassure us that it was okay to destroy you, that you were insane and just like those experiments they had to get rid of."

Harry made a barking noise under his breath, and Hale paused, as though she was wondering whether the Ministry had been right about his insanity after all. But Draco saw the moment when she shook the worry off and leaned forwards again. This time, the chair's legs bounced beneath her with the force of her lean.

"Anyway. There were experiments. Maybe Ernhardt was part of them. But I think that's part of what they were afraid that you would find out, and part of the reason they're hunting you down so hard. Besides all the other reasons."

Draco was thinking of what Athright had said, that Thacker had had a spotless reputation as far as she knew, and she'd never heard of the Ministry saying anything bad about him if he was into Dark magic.

_The Ministry._

Draco had, it seemed, a true motive for following Harry's plan at last.


	16. Breathless

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_Chapter Sixteen—Breathless_

"I don't believe her."

Harry rubbed his hand over his forehead. He and Draco had been arguing the same point for several hours, and he wasn't sure what else he could say. Draco had acted as though he believed Hale yesterday, and now, today, with Hale held prisoner in another room and the rest of the Aurors thoroughly _Obliviated _and dumped in random places without their wands, he had decided that she was lying.

"What she said makes sense," Harry said. "And it makes certain points about Thacker make sense, too. Why did no one ever suspect him? How could he experiment with Dark magic and infected blood and not get caught? If he had the Ministry's backing. If he had the Ministry's _approval_."

Harry wanted to spit when he thought about that. The same Ministry that had wanted to use his visions and would have been fascinated with some applications of the other Socrates Aurors' flaws if they knew about them had made twisted of its own. And now it wanted to destroy the twisted remaining and cover up any mention or memory of Ernhardt.

Well, no, all right, it made _sense, _more than some of the other things the Ministry had done. Covering one's own arse was a time-honored move there. Harry just didn't understand how they had thought this would remain a secret.

"But why tell her?" Draco had halted and turned his head to the side, watching Harry over his shoulder with one eye only. Harry didn't know if that was supposed to convince him or what, but it was bloody annoying, not being able to see the whole of Draco's face. "Someone who's a rigid, stickler-for-the-rules Auror? They had no reason to reveal it."

Harry snorted. "They knew Hale and I didn't get along. If we can believe everything the Montgomerys say, then Hale was part of a pattern, where they hoped I would get fed up with having stupid partners and quit, or get discredited. I don't believe the Ministry could have anticipated she would talk to me instead of keep it secret from us just because it was _me_."

Draco shook his head. "But why trust random Aurors with this information? Say Hale kept the secret. Someone else could have turned."

"That, I _do _have a theory on," Harry said, and turned towards the bedroom where they'd put Hale. Halfway there, he stopped and looked back at Draco. "Are you coming?"

Draco sighed heavily enough to tear some of the dust floating around the room apart, and then he followed. Harry hid his smirk as well as he could. Draco would probably kill him if he saw it.

Sometimes, Harry was the one who could see the plots and plans and turns of the Ministry's devious, corkscrew collective mind. He hoped that wouldn't give Draco a complex.

* * *

_You haven't wanted him to be really good at anything since he hurt you._

Draco winced away from the thought, watching instead as Harry's head bobbed in front of him, climbing the stairs. No, he told himself. No, that wasn't true. How could it be true? He had forgiven Harry for hurting him. They'd discussed it. They'd fought side by side since then, and successfully, even if it had been Harry who devised the trap that finally captured Hale and the other Aurors. Draco had killed one of them with the mist he summoned from his Black ancestors. That had to count for something, after all.

It didn't matter. He wouldn't think it.

But the suspicion remained, lingering, poisoning the back of his mind. Draco didn't trust Hale, thought Harry was foolish for doing so, and might have believed the things she said about the Ministry if they came from someone else's mouth.

But he still didn't think the Ministry would have let that information about experimenting with twisted escape so readily. Maybe a few months ago, when few people knew what twisted were or exactly that the Socrates Aurors were _told _to kill them, instead of just frequently having to do so because that was the way mad Dark wizards were.

Since the embarrassment of Ernhardt, though, Draco thought they would have wanted to cover up any participation in helping or creating twisted as much as possible. But Harry seemed certain of this. So he bit his tongue and climbed the stairs behind Harry, taking some pleasure in watching his arse.

Merlin knew it was the only pleasure he was likely to get from the next few hours.

* * *

Harry stepped into the room where they'd left Hale bound to a chair and nodded to her. She sat up at once and asked, "What have you done with the others?"

Harry shrugged at Draco, leaving the choice of whether to tell her up to him. Harry didn't think she needed the information, but he also couldn't see the harm in letting her have it. If she went back to the Ministry and told them what had happened, it wouldn't make _her _look good.

"They've been Memory Charmed and dumped in random places without their wands," Draco said, his face the emotionless mask that Harry, in theory, should have been wearing more often. "They'll make their way back home, eventually, but it'll take some time."

Harry exhaled, and then wondered what his reaction had betrayed to Hale. But this time, she only paid him a small amount of attention before she returned her gaze to Draco. "Thank you," she said, leaning against the back of the chair. "I didn't want them to suffer for anything I may have forgotten to tell you."

"I don't understand, then," Harry said, seizing the comment, because it would provide him with a way to introduce his theory. "You think we're the sort who would make other innocent people suffer because of your mistake, but you also trusted us with the secret of what the Ministry told you?"

Hale turned her stare on him. "I don't believe you're the monsters the Ministry said you are," she said. "But sane monsters could have decided to hold others hostage for good behavior. It's what I would have done."

"Ah," Harry said, nodding. "Tell me. When they gave you the information about them creating the twisted, did anyone cast a spell that trailed green or purple light through the air?"

Hale blinked. "They told us in a large office—it had to be, to hold all the Aurors going on this hunt—and full of officials, too. I couldn't see someone cast a spell like that."

Harry nodded again. He'd thought so. Hale would have been more cautious about what she told them if she'd known. "Well. Imagine, for a second, that one of us is holding a wand on you." Hale stared at him, and Harry rolled his eyes and drew his wand, aiming it at about the center of her chest. "Here. I'll help."

Hale only nodded, though, and said nothing.

"I'm going to start casting a curse," Harry said. "When I reach the middle of the incantation, then try to tell us about the twisted again."

It was becoming clear that Hale had no idea what he was on about, but Draco had taken a deep breath from behind him. Harry shot him a quick smile. Convincing Hale would be useful, but this demonstration should do that. In the meantime, convincing Draco would ordinarily take longer.

"_Aedifico_," Harry began, the first word of a curse that would bury the victim alive.

Hale opened her mouth—

And nothing came out, except a squeak of suppressed air. She collapsed in the ropes that bound her. In the next instant, her hands had risen against the bonds and were clawing at her throat.

Harry stopped chanting, dismissed the lingreing magic that he could still feel waiting to form into the Burial Curse, and dropped his wand to the floor. At the same time, Draco cast a hex that _forced _the victim's mouth to open and their lungs to expand. It was usually used to embarrass someone who was making a noise they wanted to suppress, but it worked this time, making Hale cough and gasp and stagger, and then begin to breathe normally again.

Harry picked up his wand, making sure to keep his movements slow and exaggerated, so that Hale wouldn't start choking again. Hale shook her head in response, eyes dazed but coming more and more alive as she stared at them.

"Right," she gasped, when she could say something. "What was _that_?"

"The Breathlessness Curse," Harry said.

He would have gone on to explain, but Hale looked at him with flat eyes, and said, "I _know _what spell has that effect. But you weren't casting it. Explain it."

"That's what I so enjoyed about working with you, Hale," Harry drawled. "Your cheerful personality and complete willingness to let me get on with the job."

Hale's eyes narrowed slightly. "Go on."

For once, Harry could give thanks for that porcelain pure-blood composure that nothing could break for long. He nodded. "The Ministry tied the Breathlessness Curse to the information they told you. If you attempted to confess it to someone, then you would find yourself unable to speak." He didn't need to say the rest of it. Try to go on confessing, and the curse would go on choking, to the point that it would probably kill.

"We've seen a variation of how the Ministry protected its secrets once before," Draco murmured.

Harry nodded. "Okazes."

"That makes no sense," Hale said. "Why would it activate only now, after I've already told you the truth?"

Harry laughed. He knew that the others were scowling at him, united for once in their disdain of drama, but he couldn't help it. It was so perfectly _Ministry, _both the way they had come up with to protect their secret and what they had never foreseen that might get around it.

"Because the only way they could imagine anyone telling us that, when they'd been so earnestly blackening our reputations, was under threat of torture," Harry said. "They triggered the curse to react if you were about to _be _cursed and tried to say something, the way you were when I was chanting the Burial Curse."

"Which it is dangerous to know, by the way," Hale said, staring at him.

Harry waved his hand. "They wanted you to be prepared to face twisted. It wouldn't surprise me if they thought Draco and I had been conducting experiments of our own, in order to gain some of the powers that their created twisted probably had. Have, if any of them are still alive. So they gave you the information, but ensured you couldn't speak it." He smiled at Hale. "The one thing they never considered was that you might give it to us of your own free will, instead of being 'convinced' to part with it."

Hale kicked the back of her chair, but Harry thought it was in irritation at not having figured that out herself. "Because the blackening of your reputations included telling us that you were evil and should never be trusted," she muttered.

Harry nodded. "And this _is _the Ministry. They either believe we're evil now, or have convinced themselves that since anyone finding out the truth would be utterly horrible, it's preferable to lie and lie. You were our enemies, besides. You probably wouldn't take a chance on trusting us no matter what."

"I'm the Ministry's enemy now," Hale said flatly. "Let me go, and I will start spreading the word that they should not be trusted."

"That's exactly why we can't let you go," Harry told her. "We do have a plan for ensuring that everyone sees the truth—"

"If you can call 'rushing into disaster' a plan," Draco muttered.

Harry waved his hand at Draco behind his back and went on. "But it depends on waiting a while, until a bunch of people can be gathered in one place, and literally _see _what happened. It doesn't include you spreading rumors. Do that, and those people will just say that we have you under the Imperius Curse or some such thing. This isn't a situation where one voice can make a difference."

Hale squinted at him. "But two can?"

"Maybe three." Harry faced her squarely. "If we let you go, can we trust you to stay here and speak only when we tell you to speak, or are we going to have to bind you?"

Draco said something inarticulate behind him. Harry ignored him. Maybe Hale wouldn't stay _here_, but they needed her somewhere nearby, to produce her at an appropriately dramatic moment. He did think Hale could be an asset to them, just not running around and being a voice in the wilderness.

"You can't completely trust me," Hale said. "I _have _to do what is right. I have to serve a cause worthy of being served. That's why I told you what the Ministry said about their experiments in the first place. Those prove that they aren't worthy of my service. But if you ask me to wait, neither are you."

Harry rolled his eyes. And now he could damn that pure-blood composure he'd been so eager to embrace before. "We can give you something else to do," he said. "Something that should provide you with some solid proof." _And keep you busy for at least a few days._

"What?" Hale sat up.

"You'd have to pretend to serve the Ministry a little longer," Harry cautioned her. "You'd need access to their records and archives."

Hale made an impatient motion.

"There was one researcher we're sure of," Harry said. "The name of one person who was working with infected blood and creating twisted. He supposedly had a spotless reputation, but I think that's because the Ministry protected him when he was alive. We need to know if he's dead, or if we can find him. We know something about his background, with a Muggle family, but it's probably false."

"Don't give her that," Draco said from behind Harry, his voice so low and charged that Harry flinched.

"Why not?" Hale asked. "If you put a version of the Breathless Curse on me, one that is more sophisticated and won't allow me to betray what happened, willingly or otherwise, then you wouldn't have to fear that I could tell the Ministry. But you could trust me fully with the information, and that way, I could actually be an effective ally for you."

Harry had to raise his eyebrows and grin in spite of himself, especially when he saw the narrow-eyed way Draco was looking at Hale.

"Why would you submit to it?" Draco asked.

A grave kind of smile played around Hale's lips that Harry had never seen before; he thought he might have liked her better if he had. "Shouldn't you be asking, why would I _suggest _it?" she countered. "I don't want to betray you, and I want to know some way that I can combat the Ministry. This is the best way to be sure that you'll trust me enough to let me fight."

_Pure-bloods, _Harry thought, shaking his head a little, when her argument appeared sufficient to convince Draco. Well, that was really all Harry could ask for at the moment. "Should you do it, or should I?" he asked Draco.

"Let me do it." Draco drew his wand. "That's the only way that I can be sure it'll be thorough enough."

Hale nodded as if that made sense, and leaned back in her chair. Harry shrugged and stepped aside. He could never work with Hale as a partner, but as an ally, it seemed that she wasn't so bad.

* * *

Draco caught Hale's eye as he raised his wand, in silent warning. _You should know that I don't trust you as much as Harry does. _He tried to convey the full force of that without using words.

It got him only an unimpressed look in return. Hale knew he didn't trust her, but she trusted _him_ to make sure there were no consequences to Harry's decision.

Draco wove, nonverbally so that Harry wouldn't get upset, a much more thorough version of the Breathless Curse. It was more like strangulation, and would cast the victim into a coma if they—she—persisted in trying to speak. Writing was out of the question, as it would make the hands cramp up so badly they couldn't hold a quill. Hale shuddered a little when the magic settled into her bones after a blue blaze of light, and then nodded in approval. It didn't really surprise Draco that she recognized it.

"All settled?" Harry was looking back and forth between them as if waiting for them to stop being stupid.

Hale half-smiled and waved a hand at Draco. "All is settled as far as _I _am concerned."

Draco had to nod. They had taken all the precautions that he could think of, some of them reasonable and some not so, and in the meantime, they needed to move.

"Good," Hale said. "Now give me the name."

"Jared Thacker," Harry said, and Draco watched her face for any sign of recognition, but only saw a slight frown, as though she was memorizing the information. "He was known to have Muggle parents, or supposedly Muggle parents, but at least one person who knew him thought that information was false and he had used Memory Charms to make these people _think _they were his parents…"

Draco let Harry tell Hale what they had discovered, while he took a step back and considered. Another ally in the Ministry, he supposed. Although the chances that she would discover something Athright and Jenkins—if they could ever meet with Jenkins and get the information—hadn't already found was remote, she might be valuable in other ways.

But they were going too _slowly. _They could gain allies and pieces one at a time, but they hadn't even convinced Hale. It had been the Ministry's stupidity that had done that, and she had come to them of her own free will. It wasn't an example they could rely on to convince others and win them to their side as quickly.

"Draco?"

Draco glanced up quickly. Harry stood there with his arms crossed, frowning. Draco held up his hands. "What did I miss?'

"I said," Harry murmured, "or rather Hale said, that she has an idea on how to deal with the Montgomerys."

Draco turned to her. "Do you?" He made his voice heavy with meaning, and let his eyes scrape over Hale. If she betrayed them, he could do worse than the version of the Breathlessness Curse that he had cast on her.

Either Hale understood what he meant and agreed with it so thoroughly that Draco needed to say nothing else, or she was harder to impress than he'd thought. She met his gaze and nodded slowly.

"Then what is it?" Draco demanded, when it seemed that no one was willing to tell him outright.

"Leash them to me," Hale said.

Draco stared at her. "How do you _know _that spell?" he asked.

Hale gave him one of those freezing glares that Draco had previously been under the (foolish) impression that she only reserved for Harry. "I am pure-blood, after all," she said, and then took up the task of explaining to Harry. "A leash will confine them to follow me within a certain distance, to obey me, and to use their magic only if I let them do so."

Harry flinched a little, the way he had when Draco wanted to use the painful potion on Montgomery, the way Draco had known he would. "It sounds like the Imperius Curse," he said, eyes straying to Draco before they settled back on Hale.

Hale held herself upright in the ropes and shook her head. "No," she said. "It is more humane. The Imperius Curse gives the victim no choice in resisting. The leash would let them disobey me—or try. It would be intensely painful, but it is no more cruel than what one would do to a dog."

"Human beings aren't dogs," Harry said.

"If they did what you have implied they did, then they are," Hale said, with a small shrug.

It was clear, Draco thought, that Hale was like his parents, able to effortlessly dehumanize everyone who didn't obey her and downgrade them into a lesser kind of being. Draco didn't enjoy associating with someone who did that, not after the way his parents had thrown him off, but it would serve its purpose in this case.

"Fine," Harry said. He turned to Draco. "If you'll tell me why you were surprised about her knowing the spell."

Draco sighed and rubbed his eyes. "It always comes down to suspicion with you. Doesn't it?" he added, his neck throbbing with the memory of what Harry had done to him when he cast that spell to relieve Draco of the necromantic possession. It didn't matter how long they had been together. Harry still couldn't trust that Draco knew best sometimes, or resist the temptation to expose the flaws in their partnership to someone else.

Harry looked at him, silent and stubbornly knowing, and Draco gave in. "It's a Dark spell," he said. "I was under the impression that Hale was a Light witch. That's all."

"It's one of the spells that was officially designated Dark and then reclassified some years ago," Hale corrected him, with a little hum under her breath. Draco could guess the kind of complaint it hid. "I don't mind using it in a good cause, and there is no way we can trust the Montgomerys otherwise."

"That depends on our trusting you," Draco said.

"You have your guarantee that I not talk." Hale looked him in the eye. "If I went to the members of the Department who sent us on this mission, they would scarcely be content if I tried to _act _in their best interests without being able to tell them _why _I was doing so."

Draco licked his lips. He had been about to demand that she let one of them leash _her_, but he knew what she would say in response to that: she would refuse to work with them. And it wouldn't be practical, with the Apparition they had to do, to put her under a spell that would force her to stay within a certain distance.

He stepped up to her. "I'll cast the leash," he said. "I can do that, and put someone other than myself in the position of holder."

"Fine," Hale said.

Draco bent near enough to her that Harry couldn't hear them, and whispered, "You betrayed him once. Don't think that I'm not watching you, in case you try to bring him down again."

Hale only watched him, and then smiled. "Worry more about the cracks in your own partnership, before you lecture me on one that's over," she said.

Draco nearly stepped backwards and slapped her. As it was, he cast the leash spell with a shaking hand.

Harry released Hale from her ropes, and she stood, nodded formally to each of them, and left the room to go to the ones where the Montgomerys were and assume her command.

When Harry tried to follow, Draco cast another spell that shut and locked the door of the bedroom. Harry turned and blinked at him.

"I think we need to talk," Draco told him, quietly.


	17. Talking

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seventeen—Talking_

"What do we need to talk about?" Harry thought he knew, but he also thought they'd talked it out already. Draco had said that he resented Harry for casting that spell, Harry had apologized and said that it was necessary, and then they had fought together and worked on taking down the Ministry's enemies together. Didn't that prove that the spell Harry had had to cast hadn't damaged their partnership? Harry couldn't imagine Draco fighting beside anyone he didn't trust.

"The resentment I have of you."

Harry blinked. All right, that was at least better than Draco assuming they were both equally at fault. "Fine," he said. "Why do you still resent me so much when it was _you _who did the stupid thing this time?"

Draco's shoulders rose, and his wand with them. He immediately dropped them both, but Harry had seen. Draco felt so strongly about this that he had almost threatened Harry before he remembered who he was talking to.

"Tell me," Harry said. "I did stupid things like rushing into danger, and I don't think you were as angry at me then as you are right now."

Draco stared at the chair Hale had sat in, as though that could give the answers. It didn't, and Harry waited. Draco finally turned back to him and said, "You've just been taking command lately. It hasn't felt like a partnership."

"We made the decision to go back to Cuthbert's Corner together," Harry reminded him. "And when you needed extra proof of what Hale was saying, we got it together."

"There was a time when you would have just _told _me that you suspected Hale was under a version of the Breathlessness Curse, instead of having to demonstrate it to me." Draco stood as still as a disenchanted portrait, his eyes fastened on Harry as if that would make his words make more sense. "Instead, you pushed me to the background and made it seem like I was an idiot because you knew what would happen when she tried to confess and I didn't."

"Did she say that to you?" Harry demanded. He knew that pure-blood methods of communication were subtle sometimes—Harry found it tiring to read and analyze every gesture—and Hale and Draco might share some of the same ones, since they had both been raised in pure-blood families. But he hadn't thought Hale had said anything like that as they stood there talking to her.

Draco shook his head. "But she sees the weaknesses and the flaws in our partnership. If she can notice it, when she only worked with you for a little while, then we're in trouble."

Harry grunted. "Fine," he repeated. "But I don't understand what you want me to do. I'm sorry for the pain I caused you—but I already apologized. Do you want me to say that I shouldn't have cast the spell to free you from the possession at all? Because I _won't. _I want you to be alive and hating me instead of dead from a fever, if it comes down to that."

He listened to his own words with a shade of surprise. He hadn't thought he would say all that as openly as he had. He had tried to be soothing, to respect Draco's feelings. He had suffered a little himself at watching the spell tear Draco open like that.

But it was also silly for Draco to demand more than an apology from him. What could Harry give him?

* * *

Draco ground his teeth. Harry didn't understand what causing him pain like that had done to Draco's trust in him, didn't understand why it was wrong in the first place.

_Then maybe you should tell him, _said a voice in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like his mother's.

Draco had to nod. He hadn't told Harry all the reasons why, he supposed. Harry still thought it was all the pain.

"You treated me like a child afterwards," he said. "As though casting that spell to read the bones was stupid and childish—"

"It was."

Draco opened his mouth, then shut it. Well, he had wanted honesty, hadn't he? And Harry was going to give him that.

"You wanted to know the truth behind Ernhardt," Harry said. "But you'd already found the parchment. We already knew Thacker's name. Even with the vision from the bones, you had no way of knowing that it would show us what Thacker looked like. And we think that those were probably Thacker's bones and he was probably dead, but that turned out not to be the most important thing. What he did for the Ministry was the important thing."

"I couldn't know that at the time." Draco had no intention of flinching or backing down. He stood there with his arms folded and looked down his nose at Harry instead. He couldn't believe that Harry had come this far in criticizing Draco. Had he decided that the pain he'd caused Draco didn't matter, compared to this?

"Exactly," Harry said, taking a step forwards, and his eyes flashed as though he wanted to rip Draco's head off. "No one could know that at the time. You said that you were going to cast that spell because you had to know. But you didn't know it would be worth it. You didn't have _any idea _what it would tell you. You took the risk anyway, because you wanted to know so badly. You treated that possible knowledge as worth more than my life, yours, my peace of mind, or the possibility that I might distrust you for casting a necromancy spell. You put yourself first, and that might work most of the time, but not when we're supposed to be partners and you keep insisting that we can't trust Athright and Hale and the rest of them. We only have each other to depend on? Then act _fucking dependable, _Draco."

Draco stared at Harry with his mouth hanging open. He didn't think Harry had ever scolded him like this, as though he knew exactly what had been going on in Draco's head, his motives for acting as he had, but also as though those weren't worthy motives.

"I couldn't know the spell would react like that…" he said, and then trailed off. Harry was glaring at him, his hand on his hip.

"I didn't know what the _Sectumsempra _spell I cast on you in sixth year would do, either," Harry snapped. "That was no reason to cast it. You would have died if Snape hadn't been there. Do you want an apology for that? You can have it. I'm sorry. It was stupid of me. But using a spell in a house that we knew had been flooded with Dark Arts and traps, and a spell that we _knew _was risky because it was necromancy, was even stupider."

Draco could feel his cheeks burning. He could see Harry's point. If they had waited and taken the parchment with Thacker's name on it as sufficient evidence, then it turned out that Athright's contacts could have told them plenty. And Hale was going to find out more.

"You didn't want me to cast the spell," he whispered. "I didn't realize how strong your desire for me not to do that was."

Harry snorted, and relaxed a little. "What, the fact that I decided to hurt you when I hate hurting you, because it was the only way to remove the fever, didn't tell you?"

Draco shook his head, not so much in denial as because he was overwhelmed. No, it hadn't occurred to him, to tell Harry (and himself) the truth. He had thought Harry was being overcautious and whining, but because it was Draco. Harry took risks and made plans; he just didn't want Draco doing it.

Which, now that Draco thought about it, didn't make much sense as a motive, unless Harry was so petty that he was trying to get even with Draco for the months, in their early partnership, when Draco had made more of the plans and known better.

"Maybe I shouldn't have cast it," Draco said, as much as he was willing to concede right now.

Harry held his eyes, and Draco decided that he would either have to concede more or win the argument. "No shit, _genius._"

Draco sighed and rubbed his temples. "I didn't know the consequences, and I didn't know that I would resent you as much as I did. I'm sorry for the way I reacted. Is that enough?"

He waited, then finally realized that he couldn't see Harry and so he might miss something he had done. He opened his eyes and turned his head, and Harry was smiling at him. It was so light and gentle an expression that Draco's heart leaped before he gave it permission to, and he found himself smiling back.

"Apology accepted," Harry said, extending a hand. Draco gripped it, and then pulled Harry close and kissed him, because while a handshake was nice, they were lovers, after all.

Harry leaned in as if hoping to drown in the kiss, and for the next few minutes, Draco allowed that to happen, hope beating and shimmering like a gong inside him.

_This is what it means to love someone._

* * *

"I didn't know where you were."

Harry winced a little as Jenkins strode up to them, but he couldn't regret the extra time he and Draco had taken, both to go to Grimmauld Place and to renew their partnership, when Draco's hand rested low on Harry's back and Draco stood with his head almost leaning on Harry's shoulder. "Sorry," Harry said. "We thought you would have owled us if it was urgent."

Jenkins studied them, then snorted. "Maybe you thought right," she said, and spun around to face the darkness on the cliffs above Cuthbert's Corner. "Thomasina?"

Warren, Jenkins's partner, stepped out of the darkness. She held something large and white to her chest, something that made Harry stare. For a second, he wondered if they had managed to escape from the Ministry with a whole box of files.

Then Warren set it down, and Harry's eyes readjusted. It was something much heavier than a box of files, more square, and made of white stone. There was a delicate carving around the top, a long, thin line that traced the edge of the box into a smaller square.

And here and there were stains that Harry recognized, as if a stone could rust.

"You found that where?" Draco's voice was odd. He had straightened up beside Harry, and leaned forwards now as if he wanted to run to the stone and touch it, even as he shook.

"Inside a corner of the Ministry that no one else is supposed to remember exists, anymore," Jenkins said, and her smile came and went. "But some people's memories are better than they should be. Or, at least, they can have good memories when they're threatened with exposure or bribed with enough Galleons to choke an elephant."

Harry wondered for a second how they were going to repay Jenkins and Warren if they'd spent their own money, but decided he would let it go until they brought it up. "What is it?" he asked. "I know that someone's been bled on that. Is it a place that they collected the blood from infected people?"

"It's an altar," Draco said. He breathed out the words. "I was wondering about that. The Ministry wanted to create twisted. They _could _have captured people who were already insane from their flaws, but then, they would have had to know what twisted were for a long time. I thought they only came up with the current definition after the Dark Lord was defeated. They didn't really know what twisted were until recently."

"They didn't," Jenkins said. Her voice scraped like steel on a whetstone. "They knew what they wanted, though, and they used a ritual to create them."

"I didn't think of a ritual," Draco said, talking almost to himself. He finally left Harry's side and stepped up to the altar, running his hand up and down the side. Harry flinched. He wondered what it would feel like, smooth as the marble it resembled or simple stone, and which would be worse. "I should have, given that our enemies were trying to damage Harry with one, but I didn't."

"This altar has been used for a long, long time," Warren said, her voice startling Harry into nearly jumping. "I can't tell you all the rituals that it's seen, but I can tell you how old those stains are."

"Tell me, then." Draco had fallen to one knee beside the altar, and his voice was absent. Harry shook his head and came up to it. The altar wasn't evil in and of itself, Harry thought, and it couldn't harm him. He supposed that his jumpiness around it came more from the fact that he'd been the subject of several rituals in his life.

"At least three hundred years old." Warren cast a spell nonverbally, with a flick of her wand so simple that Harry had no idea what it was, and two stains on the left of the altar began to glow. "And almost solely Dark magic, at that."

Draco cast her a withering glance, maybe to indicate that he wouldn't expect the altar to be used for anything else, and Harry jumped in before someone could say something they regretted. "Do you think that there's any way of telling what rituals they were?"

Warren looked at him. "Maybe. Why?"

"I was thinking how good it would look to the crowd I'm hoping to gather at the Ministry, if we can raise the vision of a ritual performed on that altar," Harry said simply. "All visual proof, and hard to deny."

"Someone would find a way to deny it, knowing the Ministry," Jenkins said, but her eyes shone. "Yes, that's an idea." She inclined her head to Harry. "And in the meantime, we should move as quickly as we can."

"Why?" Harry asked. "Has someone come close to discovering that you're helping us?"

Jenkins shook her head a little. "No, but I can't imagine that they won't check up on the altar soon, either to make sure that it's safe or to use it in a ritual to locate you. If they were desperate enough to use Dark magic in the past, they could use it again."

"And when they find it's gone," Warren said, "they're likely to suspect you, simply because you're their go-to villains now. I stripped the altar of all the locator charms I could find, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be something else there."

Harry heard Draco mutter something about Gryffindors, even though they hadn't the least idea what House Warren had been in, and then he sat back. "I want to try something with the altar," he said. "Something that doesn't involve conjuring the vision of the last ritual to be performed on it."

Jenkins and Warren looked at him, but didn't say anything, maybe because they hated to pander to Draco's need for an audience. It was up to Harry to sigh and say, "What is it?"

"This," Draco said, and hissed something under his breath as he began to perform an incantation, one that Harry had never heard and couldn't identify. The only thing he could make out for certain was "_speculum_," the Latin word for "mirror."

And that was enough to tell him what Draco was probably trying to do. He kept silent, and watched.

* * *

_Talk about Gryffindor. What is relying on intuition, if not that? _

But the notion had come to Draco and preyed so powerfully on his mind that he couldn't let it rest. If he was wrong and his spell produced no results, at least he would _know _he was wrong and be able to move on.

The spell settled onto the altar, and for long seconds only trickled and wavered around it, making the altar look as though it was running with water. Draco curled his lip. He didn't want to make the altar look beautiful or clean, but the side-effect of the spell was inevitable.

Then there was a soft chime, and one stream of light rose from the near side of the altar, growing larger and more diffuse the further away it moved, until it formed and illuminated an image of a mirror, large, with an elaborate frame that repeated a pattern of flowers and eyes. Another chime, another beam of light, and this time the mirror was a tiny handheld one that Draco thought was probably used for communication more than looking. And another chime, and another stream of light, and another mirror.

It wasn't until the sixth stream of light that Draco saw what he was looking for. He sat back on his heels and hissed. He thought he heard Jenkins snicker. Maybe the hiss _was _more appropriate than he had meant it to be, given that the mirror in the image was encircled with snakes, but what mattered was that he had seen that particular mirror before, hanging on his parents' wall in Malfoy Manor, before he broke it. And his spell to locate possible connections between the altar and other magical artifacts, in this case mirrors, had paid off.

"I assume that you will tell us what this spell means?" Jenkins's voice could be taken as polite, if you wanted to do that.

Draco stood up and dusted off the stone and dust clinging to him before he responded. And then, he looked to Harry, who would know something about this already. "So it seems the altar was used to research ways of defending against the twisted as well as creating them," he said.

Harry nodded. "Or to defend against _becoming _a twisted."

Draco inclined his head. He still wasn't sure when his mother, by that definition, had become twisted, before or after he had smashed the mirror, and he didn't want Warren and Jenkins's stares to grow any sharper than they were. Part of the truth would have to do.

"We met someone who seemed to be using a mirror and necklace to protect herself against falling into the full mindset of a twisted," Draco told Jenkins and Warren. "She may also have had a second mirror, though we found only the evidence of where it was hung and not the mirror itself. At one time, I knew her well, and I would swear that she was sane. In fact, she was sane a few months ago, when she helped me on one of our cases. But since then, she's begun the descent into a twisted."

"What's her flaw?" Jenkins asked.

"Something to do with snakes," Harry said, before Draco could. "You'll notice that the mirror in the image was surrounded by snakes. I also spoke Parseltongue to a scar around her neck, and it moved of its own accord to attack me."

Draco's skin crawled. He thought Harry must have told him that before, or maybe not. He scrubbed at the skin around his neck, and had to smile a little when he saw Warren raising her hand to do the same thing. She lowered it a second later and shook her head at him.

"But you know no more than that." Jenkins tracked back and forth between them with her eyes, as though trying to decide how important it was to force them to reveal more.

"No," Harry said. Draco nodded. Nothing except the most dire necessity, or someone else guessing the truth, would force him to speak about this occurring in his own family.

_What was your family._

Draco hid his wince. If the words actual people said to him couldn't make him visibly flinch, then there was no way a voice in the back of his own head would do so.

"Then I don't see how this information is useful." Jenkins folded her arms and seemed to consider that the end of the discussion. "You believe that the mirror would make a convincing demonstration to someone who didn't know its history?"

"It might make a convincing demonstration to that particular twisted," Draco said. He was sure now that his parents retained their memories of the mirrors and the way that his mother seemed to be sliding down into madness, whether or not they remembered him. "And it confirms that whatever happened to her, it stemmed from this altar."

Jenkins studied him for a few moments, seemed convinced they weren't getting any more out of him, and turned to Harry, letting her arms fall to her sides. "What do you think we should do next, then? This altar would be useful in your mad plan to show the twisted to the greatest number of people, but I don't think the time is right for it yet."

Harry paused and looked at Draco. "Not right _yet_," he said.

Draco narrowed his eyes. He knew that particular tone. "What mad plan do you have in mind _now_?" he asked. He wondered how long it would take him to get reconciled to it. Maybe not as long as with the plan to show everyone the truth at the Ministry. He'd had the extra resentment driving him from the necromancy spell and its aftermath then.

"Something you said about the—the twisted gave me the idea," Harry said, his eyes bright and remote. "I kept wondering how we were going to clear space in the Ministry and show everyone the truth without being stopped and arrested. I was thinking they might give us a public trial."

"Not at this point," Warren put in. "You're too dangerous. They'll take you off and kill you and show everyone the bodies later."

Draco nodded in reluctant approval. It was what he would have done.

"But there's a way," Harry said. "It would take a while to collect all the snakes I could with Parseltongue, but there's carved snakes in the Ministry itself, too, and they should respond. If the snakes held people back and cleared the way, then we might have an arena for the show we need to put on."

Draco realized he was holding his breath, and choked it out again.

"You want to use Dark magic, or what's acknowledged as Dark magic, to show that the Ministry's been involved in Dark magic?" Jenkins considered Harry from head to foot, as if trying to decide what part of his body the crazy was coming from. "You think anyone's going to be enthusiastic about that?"

Harry laughed. "I think that the Ministry's already blackened my reputation so much that one use of Dark magic isn't going to matter. And at least, for the people who are more rational, they'll remember that I've had this particular gift for years. Yes, it might make a difference. It might allow us to actually _do _this instead of having to give the plan up because it's too difficult." He held Jenkins's eyes and smiled. "What it will do to my reputation afterwards is the least of my worries."

Draco saw the moment when things tilted, when Jenkins nodded with approval instead of disdain and Warren's eyes sparked. And then Harry turned and looked at him.

Draco held his hand out. Harry clasped it, tilting his head down as if to shield his eyes behind his fringe and brace himself for disappointment.

"We will do it," Draco whispered.

And he couldn't regret agreeing, not when Harry's eyes were as bright as rain.


	18. The Altar

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eighteen—The Altar_

"The altar would have to be the cornerstone of any plan that we made to show visions to the masses."

Jenkins had a crisp way of talking that Draco admired most of the time. She was practical; she would use Dark Arts when she needed to, and never mind the Auror code of conduct that somehow said it shouldn't be necessary when they were dealing with people who wouldn't hesitate. But right now, her voice grated on his ears. He shifted on the bed in Cuthbert's Corner and glared at Harry.

Harry picked up on the glare, tilted his head in response, and faced Jenkins. "You think that it would have to be?" he asked. "What about my plan of projecting memories?"

Jenkins said something. Warren leaned forwards and added her own suggestion. Draco turned his back and walked out of the room, and he didn't care who watched him go. They had Kreacher with them, and he could bring messages or destroy any of the Dark Arts traps that waited around the house, Draco was sure.

And he wouldn't be foolish enough again to cast a necromancy spell here.

He wandered down the corridor and stepped into a room Kreacher had cleaned of Dark influences, which had a desk in the middle of the floor, but no chairs. Draco leaned against the desk and rubbed his eyes.

He'd had a headache since he saw that vision of the mirror linked to the altar, and thought some of it was the influence of the house. But Harry had refused to go back to Grimmauld Place when Draco asked. Now that the Ministry knew they might come there, he said, he didn't feel safe.

Draco sighed and shut his eyes. The house, the tension, the lack of safety, all of those were things that contributed to his headache. But he knew the real cause, and it was cowardly to try and hide from it any longer.

There _had _to be a way to get his mother free of the flaw that apparently possessed her.

He didn't know how the mirrors had worked, but they had formed a barrier of some kind. And she had been sane for a long time, he thought, at least for a twisted. He didn't know when the flaw had manifested, but it was a few months since he had seen his mother wearing the necklace of snakes that was linked to the mirror. Most twisted went insane from Dark Arts in much less time.

There had to be a way to free her.

Draco bit the corner of his lip. He could hear the questions he should ask himself, and they were actually in Kreacher's voice, strange as that was, not in Harry's.

_Why is Master Draco wanting to be helping them? They not be his family any longer!_

Draco nodded. And they never would be again. Even if the ritual by which they'd forgotten him wasn't irreversible, they had made their choice when they exiled him before that. He'd chosen seven years of working, his career, over his family. He couldn't erase that, or forgive them.

But he still wanted his mother free, if he could. Maybe that was an example of the "do the right things" mentality that ruled so many Aurors, including Harry, and others whom Draco had mocked in his head for years. But this was his right thing, not theirs, and he wanted his mother free.

His father didn't seem to have a flaw, so Draco wouldn't worry about him for right now. He would learn all he could about Narcissa's flaw.

And the best way to do that was with a private scouting mission.

* * *

Harry sent Jenkins and Warren on their way at last. They'd discussed various plans using the altar, and although they'd hammered out two or three options, they hadn't decided on one yet. It would take time and working with the altar to make it give up its secrets before they could see it, Harry was certain.

Also, it was becoming obvious that he needed to talk to Draco again.

Draco had walked out in the middle of their conversation with Warren and Jenkins, and Jenkins had looked at Harry, narrow-eyed. Harry had waved a hand at her, not wanting to deal with it for right now, and Jenkins had nodded and continued speaking. But then Draco had wandered back in and leaned against the wall, staring blankly. That was when Harry had hurried to make sure that their conversation reached an end.

"Draco?"

It was a long moment before Draco stirred and looked at him. "Yes?" There was a gritty sound to his voice that made Harry have to remind himself Draco had slept as much as he had last night. It _had _been a long day, though.

"What is it?" Harry could have asked in ways that danced around the bush, but he and Draco had always been blunt with each other. They might as well continue that tradition.

Draco bit his lip and ran his hand through his hair, gestures that Harry thought of as belonging to himself, not Draco. Harry almost smiled as he reached up and gently caught Draco's hand, bringing it down again and shaking it. Draco smiled back, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"I can't hide anything from you," Draco said.

"I'm glad that we have the kind of relationship where that's true."

Draco blinked and shifted for a second. Then he said, "Yes. Well. Maybe."

Harry shook his arm again.

Draco nodded. "Right. It's my mum." His voice cracked, and he stopped and cleared his throat as though he hadn't anticipated that. Well, to be honest, neither had Harry. "I know that she's not my mum anymore, that she thinks she never had children, but…I want to free her from the flaw. I don't want her to spend the rest of her days insane. And the thought of someone having to hunt her down makes me _sick_."

"Or your father having to do it," Harry finished, nodding.

The flinch Draco made tore Harry's hand free. "I never thought of that," Draco whispered, looking away from him. "Why did you have to put that in my head? Oh, _Merlin_."

Harry winced, and then moved forwards and gently settled an arm on Draco's shoulder. "So you want to come up with something to help her? To—turn her flaw around?" Harry had no idea how it could be done. They had encountered twisted who didn't know what they were and twisted who had become as they were through no fault of their own, but he didn't think anyone had ever rescued one.

"The altar might be able to tell us." Draco leaned against Harry's shoulder, almost taking him from his feet until he scrambled to brace them. "She had a mirror, didn't she, and a necklace? There have to be measures out there that could protect her. I was the one who was responsible for destroying the ones she had. I think I should be offering to replace them."

Harry nodded and stroked Draco's neck. He knew what Draco meant, and it was independent of whether his mother ever knew that he had done it, or thanked him. He wanted her free, and that was it.

Harry thought he might have had similar feelings about his parents, if they'd lived.

He stepped back and said, "Then you need to use that spell on the altar again, I think, the one that conjured the vision of the mirror. And maybe you can use a variation that would show the necklace, whatever the Latin word for necklace is."

A faint laugh shook Draco, and he stepped back, shaking his head. "You have no idea what the Latin word for necklace is," he said. "Even though I know it's in some spells that you've cast before." He rubbed his eyes roughly with one hand. "Your education is shockingly incomplete, and you're never curious about the right things."

Harry smiled faintly. Draco insulting his education was at least better than Draco wallowing in despair. "Fine. Can you perform the spell that way or not?"

"I can," Draco said. He focused on the altar, which Warren and Jenkins had left with them, on the reasonable grounds that it would be worse for them to be caught with it than it would be for Harry and Draco. "Do you want me to do it now?"

Harry raised his eyebrows. "What else do we have to do? We can't invade the Ministry until we have more allies—and ideas."

Draco nodded and closed his eyes, his face contracting, his eyelids drawing down. Harry watched in fascination. He doubted Draco knew what his expression looked like when he did intense magic, but to Harry, it was as beautiful as everything else about him.

"_Torquis_," Draco whispered at last, and if that was the Latin name for a necklace, it was one that Harry couldn't remember ever using in his own spells. Draco gestured towards the altar, his movements coming faster and more intense than ever, and then the words spun out of his mouth, faster than Harry could translate. "_Torquem coarguo…_"

And Harry lost track after that, but he could see the effect. The altar seemed to pour with water, the way it had before, and then the blood grooves flashed. Harry frowned.

Draco had his eyes open again and seemed to be past reciting the spell, so Harry asked him, "What does that flash mean?"

"It means that the spell has been performed recently." Draco stood up on his toes and leaned forwards, his wand gripped in his hand as though he expected the altar to produce something they would have to fight.

But what came forth were visions, so many that Harry despaired of picking out Narcissa's necklace among them all. There was a long chain that was made of gold with lions dangling from it, and then something that looked like it would complement Ravenclaw's diadem, and a thin silver band, and a pendant that Harry had to hide his eyes from, since even in the vision it flashed so brightly, and…

But Draco was either more alert or more focused than Harry was, because he hissed and pointed. "There. Look! There it is."

Harry followed his finger, and saw it, the heavy silver necklace of snakes that Draco had said was so unlike most things his mother would have considered wearing. He nodded and leaned forwards to study it. The snakes looked exactly the same as they had in the original, but the vision didn't show any connection to a mirror that he saw. "Do you have to cast the spell about the mirror at the same time?"

Draco didn't answer him. Harry turned around and saw him aiming his wand at the vision of the snake necklace.

"_Ligo_," Draco said, and hissed the word so passionately that Harry wasn't surprised to see the vision freeze in place and turn towards them, although he hadn't known that was possible. He wondered if it would be possible to hold the visions in place when they used the altar, and the other parts of their plan, yet to be defined, to show the truth to the Ministry.

The vision began to spin. Draco walked around it, staring at it. Then he called out sharply, without words, and Harry hurried over to him.

The back of the necklace was made of snakes' twisting bodies, as Harry had assumed it would be, although he hadn't ever had a chance to see the part that had stayed against Narcissa's skin. But there was something else. The clasp was huge, split into two hinges. Each hinge was set with something. The one on the right looked like a faceted jewel, but the silvery color of the vision kept them from seeing what it was. The other was a small, equally faceted, mirror.

"I never noticed this before," Draco murmured, running his fingers over the air in front of the vision as though he could touch the necklace and unclasp it. "At least it explains the connection of the mirrors to the necklace, if she was wearing one all along."

Harry nodded absently. The vision reminded him of something, but his mind had to struggle after it. It couldn't be something that he remembered well, if he had to think this hard about it.

"I wish we knew what the jewel was." Draco took a step back and eyed the vision. "Different jewels would perform different kinds of magic. You can't enchant a ruby the way you would an emerald."

Maybe it was the reference to an emerald that jarred Harry's memory. He snapped his fingers, and Draco turned to him. "What?"

"There was a case Ron and I worked when we were partners," Harry said, eyeing the vision again. No, it really did look like his memory. "We found a bracelet, not a necklace, but it had a clasp like this, with a mirror on one side and an emerald on the other. We couldn't figure out what it did and our prisoner wasn't talking, so Ron put it on."

Draco closed his eyes and used one hand to push his hair off his forehead. "Well, you came by your recklessness honestly, if it's an inheritance from _Weasley_," he muttered.

Harry glared at him, and kicked him a little. "It turned out not to harm him permanently," he said. "What happened was that suddenly he could see out a mirror that turned out to be hanging on the prisoner's bedroom wall. And the emerald was bringing him sounds of an Abraxan that the prisoner kept in a corral on the other side of the wall."

Draco frowned. "Sounds," he repeated.

Harry nodded. "The problem was that the perception was startling, and Ron lost his head and crashed into a wall because he couldn't see or hear normally. They got the bracelet off him at last." He eyed the necklace vision again. "I'm just saying that if that jewel is an emerald, then it might have been bringing sounds to your mother."

"Sounds of _what_?" Draco paced back and forth as though he could make the vision give up its secret simply by staring at it.

Harry stared at him in turn, but it was a long time before Draco spun back around and noticed it. "Snakes," Harry said at last. It seemed simple to _him_.

_Which might mean that it's not really simple at all, and you're wrong. _But Harry thought he could put up with that, if so.

"My parents can't understand Parseltongue," Draco said. "Why would they keep snakes?"

Harry shrugged. "People do all the time, as pets and familiars and guards and Potions ingredients." He'd been called often enough on other Auror cases when someone else needed him to use Parseltongue to know that. "And I don't think it was your mother that needed to understand Parseltongue. I think it was her scar."

Draco once again stared at him. Harry reached up and felt his forehead. "Did I turn into a genius when no one was looking?" he asked. "You don't need to _look _at me that way, Draco."

"You said that her scar responded to your Parseltongue," Draco muttered, and gave a violent shiver. "I just didn't think about how that—how that would translate into her needing to hear the language of snakes through a mirror."

"Well, we don't know _for sure,_" Harry said. "That jewel might not be an emerald. Even if it is, it might not be enchanted the same way. There must be lots of things that you can do with an emerald."

"Perhaps, but it's not a branch of magic that many people study anymore." Draco paced in a slow circle around the room. "So you think that my mother was linked to a mirror, and to a lot of snakes that she could hear speaking Parseltongue. Words that would keep her scar contented and happy?" And then he spun around and frowned at Harry. "Wait a minute. The scar was the result of the necklace exploding. It couldn't have been there to listen to the Parseltongue _before _that. So what was listening?"

"Maybe the necklace covered up the scar, it didn't create it," Harry said quietly. "You said yourself that the necklace was really thick and blocky, not something your mother would ordinarily wear."

"So where did the scar come from in the first place?"

Harry shrugged. He thought Draco had a talent for asking questions that they probably wouldn't find the answer to, rather than ones they would. "I don't know. Or maybe it was her flaw that was responding to the Parseltongue, whether or not she could understand it, and then it became her scar after the explosion. We know Morningstar changed a lot when she became a twisted. The same thing could have happened to your mother."

Draco shut his eyes. "Except that she's not insane yet."

"I don't know anything about that," Harry said quietly. He didn't think he'd interacted enough with Narcissa Malfoy to say whether she was insane.

Draco opened his eyes again and turned to face Harry. "So I'm going to need you with me when I do something about my mother, then, if her flaw can only be subdued by Parseltongue."

"Speaking to her scar that way only seemed to infuriate it," Harry said. "Maybe your best chance would be to leave me here."

Draco leaned forwards. "Then I want you with me when I go back to the Manor, because my parents might still have snakes around and you're the only one I know who could command them."

Harry stared at him, a little surprised. "You want to invade the Manor _again_?"

"I want my mother to be all right," Draco said. "I need to gather more information, anyway. Will you come with me?"

What could Harry say to that? He hadn't done well the last time he had gone to the Manor by himself, but that had been due to the Montgomerys, not because he'd actually managed to gain access to the house and then not known what to do. And he knew that Draco would go without him, just like Harry would ultimately have gone to the Ministry with just his allies if Draco had said no.

"Harry?"

Draco reached towards him, his eyes so wide that Harry's calculations and reasons flew out the window. He'd never been good at them, anyway. He reached out and clasped Draco's hands.

"I'll go with you," he said quietly, "although I don't know how much I can help."

* * *

Draco felt as if his shoulders had melted with the weight of his relief. He would have tried to do this without Harry, but he didn't know if he would have succeeded.

"Good," he said. "I think I even have a way to get into the Manor, if you don't mind using Dark magic."

Harry clapped his hand over his chest. "Oh, no, Dark magic! Whatever will I do?"

Draco hit him on the side of the head, or tried. Harry dodged, grinning, and it was hard to do anyway when Draco still had hold of one hand by the wrist. "Shut up. I know that you wanted to use a Light spell last time."

"That's because it was the best way to pass the wards." Harry shrugged and kept his eyes fastened on Draco. "But they might have come up with a good way to guard against it, now that I've actually used it. Our big advantage last time was surprise. What's it going to be this time?"

Even Draco's fast heartbeat was calming, he realized, marveling. Harry had that effect on him, now that he was no longer alone.

"There's no advantage in secrecy," Draco said. "I'm going to write a letter to my parents and hint that we know a way to cure my mother."

Harry stood there for a second. Then he said, "How are we going to meet them? They might still not recognize you, but any glamours you wore would be stripped off by the wards, and they know that I'm their enemy by now."

Draco smiled. "I know my parents," he said. _Ex-parents, _whispered in the back of his mind, but Harry knew all about that, and if he wasn't going to require Draco to say it, then Draco didn't need to say it. "My father would do anything for my mother, and I think that's only truer as she slides down into madness—if she is—because he knows otherwise that he might have to kill her to defend himself, or else die and know that someone else is going to kill her. We have to lure them away from the Manor, and for the promise that we know how to cure her, they'll come."

Harry took a deep breath. "And where do you suggest we bring them? Here? We can't go to Grimmauld Place, your mother would recognize it."

"And the Aurors are probably swarming over it by now anyway," Draco said dryly. "I doubt that the ones we _Obliviated _and dropped off were the only ones who knew about it. No, I thought meeting on the cliffs outside, the same place we met Athright, might help."

Harry looked into the distance for a long time. Draco let him look. It was a risky plan, and unlike the risky plans that Harry kept coming up with, it was something Draco was asking him to do _now_, and without allies.

Then Harry nodded and turned back. "All right. Do you think you can come up with a glamour that will protect you? And I'll need to hide, or be under a glamour myself. It might be better to hide. The minute I start hissing, they'll know who I am, anyway."

Draco smiled. "I can cast a powerful glamour charm when I need to and have the right amount of time," he said. "I was just always miserable at it when I had to do it quickly. Decide on the right hiding place…"

* * *

Harry watched Draco. His eyes were wide, but his manner was calm. There was no sense that this was a desperate plan, although Harry knew it was, or that he would suddenly change his mind and declare this parents could handle themselves without help from him.

_A pity._

But Harry knew he would help Draco. Of course he would. He was committed to helping him, and he loved him, and although he disliked Lucius and disliked both of them for the way they'd treated Draco, he would have wanted to save them if they were his parents.

So he nodded, and smiled, and held Draco's hands except when he broke away to pace about the room and gesture, and accepted that he would have to take some risks.

_But how is that different from normal life? _


	19. Speaking Parseltongue

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nineteen—Speaking Parseltongue_

"She says that she'll do it."

Harry took a long moment to look up from the letter they had received from Athright that morning, and when he did, he blinked at Draco with what Draco considered a distinct and unflattering lack of attention. "What? Who says she'll do what?"

Draco stifled a growl. Harry had agreed to come with him, had even _suggested _that he be the one to come with Draco. That meant that he still wanted to, and Draco would go on believing that until Harry himself said otherwise. "My mother," he said patiently. "I told her that I was a representative of the organization that had proposed a solution to her problem—"

"How do you know the Ministry did that?" Harry interrupted, tossing aside Athright's letter and sitting up.

"I don't," Draco said. "I mean, not as if I'd heard my mother say it. I'm doing this thing called _assuming, _which I also _assume _is familiar to you in several of its manifestations."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Don't be a berk. I just want to know why you knew the Ministry contacted them first, instead of the other way around."

Draco gave them a remote smile. "How would they know about problems my mother was having, you mean? Actually, I assume she _did _write to them first, or was directed to them by someone she knew who had worked with the group using the altar in the Ministry. But it would have been the Ministry who contacted her to say that they had a solution. I doubt that she waited around there until they came up with the necklace and the mirrors and the right ceremony to do on the altar."

Harry shrugged. "I don't know that much about rituals. I thought she might have, if it was important enough. How would they have figured out the right ritual, anyway?"

"Samples of her blood, and hair," Draco said. "Divining magic, which _isn't _the same thing as that Divination bollocks you were learning in Hogwarts. And sacrifices that the altar would accept in return for leading them to the right answer."

Harry wrinkled his nose. "Sacrifices that don't include blood?"

Draco sighed. It _was _difficult to explain it to someone who hadn't grown up with rituals, but he would try, because the less Harry understood, the more things would go wrong. "I mean that the altar would take the sacrifices of animals, and of human blood, other than the blood they were using to try and find a means of protection from my mother's flaw. I'm sure that my parents paid the people who made the sacrifices well."

Harry understood now, from his expression, but he still looked a little sick. "And the Ministry—I mean, they would _kill _people?"

"Most likely only animals," Draco said. "That's the safer course, and if you kill enough of them, it's the same as killing a human."

"What do these rituals demand?" Harry said, kicking his heels hard against the bed. "The magical power that people are always saying is in the blood, or what?"

"The pain," Draco said reluctantly. "The more that someone can anticipate their death and the pain they're going to suffer, the more powerful the sacrifice is. But animals can be afraid, too. That's why an animal sacrifice can be equivalent, eventually."

Harry closed his eyes and stood up. "I don't think I _need _to know more about this," he said, and held out his hand for Narcissa's letter.

Draco surrendered it easily enough. It was a plain, spare letter, of the kind that his mother wrote to anyone she didn't know well. It said simply that she would be interested in meeting with him to discuss a solution to her problem, and her former dealings with his organization had been satisfactory. There were times that Draco loved the empty language of formal letter-writing. Everyone was so coy in case the information fell into the wrong hands, like saying "organization" instead of "Ministry," that it was easy to fit into the dialogue and take it over without knowing the specifics.

Harry leaned back and handed the letter to Draco. "It sounds like it'll work," he said. "Will meeting in this abandoned Malfoy property alert them?"

Draco shook his head. "That house used to be Unplottable, but my ancestors had to give it up a long time ago to pay a debt. The person they gave it to—a Crabbe, I think—let it fall into disrepair to show his contempt and that he was rich enough not to need Malfoy property. The Ministry knows about it, and anyone who's pure-blood would know the story and also know about it. It makes a sensible place to meet."

Harry grunted. "All right. Do we have time to go before them and find a place for me to hide? Do we have time for you to practice your glamours?"

Draco smiled and stood. "Yes to both. I intend to lead the way." He paused, his eyes going back to Athright's letter on the bed. "What were you reading that made you so upset? She didn't really send us any new information, did she?"

Harry sighed. "No. Just more confirmation that the Ministry was probably involved in these experiments to create twisted. It's easy to find evidence once you know what you're looking for." He rubbed his mouth. "It just makes me sick, to know that I was working for and believing in an organization that could do things like that."

Draco patted his shoulder. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that the wizarding world was just _like _that, that someone would use Dark Arts as long as they were there to be used, and so any organization that Harry could have worked for would do the same. But Harry didn't need to hear that right now. "Come on. The more we can do to combat this kind of thing and save some twisted, the less useless our years with the Ministry need to be."

* * *

Harry looked around the courtyard of the deserted manor, and shuddered. It was a more open place than Malfoy Manor, and really didn't look much like it, since it was built of dark stone instead of the marble that seemed to be everywhere there. And time had broken into the walls and laid them open to the sky. There were bare rooms and huge windows with branches growing through them. It was hard to find it a threatening place for any of the same reasons that Harry had found Lucius and Narcissa's home threatening during the war, or recently.

But Harry could feel the Dark magic worked into and shining out of the stones. He thought anyone who'd been an Auror could. Draco had grimaced and clasped his left arm the instant he stepped through the arched entranceway. His flaw was sensing Dark magic as a tingle or burn in his Mark. Harry thought the effect had diminished somewhat, or Draco would have started screaming minutes ago, but it still couldn't be pleasant.

Harry, right now, was considering a suitable hiding place—one where his magic wouldn't give him away, and one where he didn't have to constantly flinch and jump every time something of the power these stones had been soaked in hurt him.

"What about here?" Draco walked up behind Harry and pointed over his shoulder at a far corner of the courtyard. Harry was still having a hard time telling if this place had been a garden or just the approach to the house, but it was walled on all sides and the oaks that had broken the stones grew overhead, their branches arching, so it was a wild version of a garden now. The place Draco had pointed at was next to the arched doorway, in a pool of shadow where the branches trailed on the ground.

Harry stepped towards it, then froze and shook his head. It was like wading into cold water. "No. Absolutely not."

"Why not?" Draco controlled the snap in his voice, which was all that Harry could ask for. Their perceptions must be giving them completely different answers. "You know that there's nothing there that can harm you. I promise, all traces of Malfoy wards faded a long time ago. I would never have suggested coming here if there was something that could hurt you."

The impatience in his voice made Harry wince, but he still couldn't bring himself to move forwards. "There was—something there," he said. "Something died there, or got killed there, I don't know which. Maybe one of those sacrifices of pain and blood that you talked about there with the altar."

Draco didn't answer. Harry turned to look at him, and saw Draco studying him with narrowed eyes. He turned from the corner under the tree back to Harry, and then murmured, "I didn't know that your flaw included seeing deaths from the past, now."

Harry sighed. "It doesn't. I just—think some very powerful Dark magic took place there, and I don't want to be there, the same reason you wouldn't want to be in a room that had been the site of a murder."

"Almost every room in the Manor could fit that designation, after the war," Draco muttered, but held his hand up when Harry would have opened his mouth to protest. "Yes, Harry. I know that you have different experiences. Don't hide there, then. We'll find somewhere else for you to fit."

Harry turned around in a slow circle, and then nodded. "What about that?" He pointed to a clump of tall grass gathered around the base of a ruined fountain. The figure in the center of the fountain was vague, but Harry thought he could make out raised wings and an opened beak, which meant a bird of some kind. At least it didn't give him the same feeling of cold, Dark magic that almost everything else in the garden did.

Draco shrugged. "As long as you keep up spells that will blend you into the grass, it should be fine."

Harry nodded again and dropped to his hands and knees to explore the clump of grass, and make sure that nothing was hiding in there that would make the experience too unpleasant to be going on with. The grass revealed nothing but a few scuttling ants and one frightened bird to his patting hands, though. He turned around on his knees, stretched out, and cast the glamour that would make his clothes and face match the grass.

Draco watched him, nodding himself when the glamour made Harry assume the right color and consistency. "Good. You can even move around as much as you want, and I don't think they'll notice. You know how to cast the glamour of a bird flying up, if you need to, to explain any sound?"

"Yes," Harry said, and tapped his fingers on the stones. "Speaking of which, they'll probably be here soon. Shouldn't you put on your glamours?"

Draco shrugged, but held his wand up to his face. "I _did _put up a perimeter ward that would alert me to anyone Apparating in nearby, and I doubt they would Apparate directly into the house, anyway. They would want to investigate from a distance, the way we did, and see where we've already arranged ourselves."

But his face began to change the moment he finished speaking, so at least Harry didn't need to scold him for that. His hair thinned and receded, and turned a sandy-brown color so unremarkable that Harry thought there were probably two thousand wizards in Britain with it. His eyes narrowed and the angles of his face became smaller, and a few pimples popped out here and there.

"Don't you think that's overdoing it?" Harry asked.

Draco ignored him, but the pimples got smaller, and his eyes turned blue from their distinct, clear grey. Then he went over to look at himself in the water that remained at the bottom of the fountain basin, murmuring a last-minute series of instructions to Harry.

"Watch her scar as much as you can, but don't reveal yourself. Don't try to do anything with my father. If the worst comes to the worst, then I'm going to let you handle my mother and her flaw. I'll take care of my father."

Harry nodded. He probably would have suggested them both going up against Lucius if Lucius hadn't had Harry's curse on him that made it impossible for him to use harmful spells. Lucius was the only one they _knew _was sane, and Draco had described well how desperate he would get once he realized they were using spells to influence Narcissa.

But as it was, Harry would trust to Draco's dueling skills and Auror training.

"Make sure that when you start hissing, you're prepared for the attack to start, too." Draco turned and stared at him. "I'm going to try and convince them with the stone I enchanted to look like the altar, but even if I do, they might not submit to all the spells that I'll need for the fake ritual."

Harry nodded again. He knew that this was the heart of Draco's plan: tempting the Malfoys with the thought that there was another ritual to cure Narcissa, although they'd left the real altar at Cuthbert's Corner and brought a fake one here. If they could entrap his mother into falling asleep or lying down on the fake altar, Draco thought, then they might be able to keep her still long enough for Harry to do something with Parseltongue, or at least pour Veritaserum down her throat and figure out what had happened with the mirrors and the necklace.

All of that would depend on lulling the Malfoys' suspicions and keeping Lucius out of the picture, of course.

Draco cast another quiet charm that would prevent any use of _Hominem revelo _or other spells to detect a hiding person, and then turned and faced the arched entrance, poised dramatically in the middle of the courtyard. Harry settled back to wait, making sure the grass didn't rustle around him.

* * *

Draco made himself not pace back and forth, because if his parents did manage to evade the wards and arrived suddenly, then they would be suspicious of anyone so nervous. He stood in front of the makeshift altar and locked his hands in front of himself instead, forcing relaxation on muscles that didn't want to relax.

This was risky, he knew that. But he couldn't come up with a plan that had less risk but was also going to give them what they wanted. All right, what _he _wanted, and needed, to do. He doubted that his mother was that important to Harry, except as someone who mattered to Draco.

Draco could remember lessons that his father had given him about keeping his face under control, his breathing, the nervous motions of his hands that Draco had been prone to when he was a child. It wasn't really the other children or even the other pure-blood families that Lucius invested so much in keeping secrets from. But he thought Draco would go into politics someday, and he told Draco again and again that fortunes or political influence could be won or lost if you made someone suspicious at the wrong time. You didn't want to make them nervous because you yourself were fluttery or upset when you had no reason to be.

The atmosphere of this place helped him to relax, once he was used to the constant stinging on his left arm. There had once been people here who would risk everything to help their family, and although it hadn't belonged to his ancestors for centuries, it was still something that _had_. Not something completely alien.

Whether or not his parents remembered the blood bonds that connected them, Draco was starting to think what mattered was that _he _remembered them.

He felt the tingle of the wards travel through his body like a wave when they Apparated in. Draco straightened at once and assumed the ancient, formal expression that they would probably expect from an expert in magical rituals. He thought he heard Harry snicker in the grass nearby, but he ignored that. What mattered was that his parents could believe in him in this guise, not Harry.

And he knew Harry would keep quiet when it mattered.

They came forwards with a glow of spells around them; Draco could tell that from the wards at first, and then from the sight of the sparks and lights dancing in front of their steps. He stood still with his hands clasped in the sleeves of his robes, and bowed only when they were directly in front of the arched entrance that led into this courtyard. He saw his father stop Narcissa with a hand on her arm.

His mother looked at Draco with flat eyes, or eyes that were trying to appear flat. Draco could see the distant quiver at the corners of them, and the way she turned her head to the side a second later, holding up her hand as if to block Draco's gaze.

Lucius immediately stepped in front of her, wand out and eyes on Draco.

Draco avoided biting his lip. Yes, the way his father was trying to protect his mother was similar to the way that Draco would try to protect Harry in the same situation, but that didn't mean he could start feeling too much sympathy for them. He stared past them instead, pretending not to notice their weakness.

Slowly, Lucius came forwards. Narcissa walked behind him, sometimes touching his shoulder, sometimes holding onto the sleeve of his robe. Lucius practically stalked through the gate, daring Draco to say something. Draco held his tongue, bowing only when both of them came out from beneath the arch's shadow into sunlight.

"You understand that we have a right to be suspicious, Mr. Verger." Lucius's voice held no inflection. That was meant, Draco knew, to tell him that he knew Verger wasn't Draco's real name.

Draco didn't care. It wasn't as though he intended to ever use the pseudonym again. He smiled without passion and said, "Yes, you do. But I hope that you will listen to me when I tell you about the procedure I have discovered that might relieve Mrs. Malfoy's…troubles."

Lucius sneered at him, but turned and put his hand on Narcissa's shoulder, whispering to her. Narcissa nodded jerkily. Her hand rose to touch the scar on the side of her neck.

Draco had his chance to study it closely for the first time, and realized that Harry might have been right about the scar being older than the explosion of the necklace. It didn't look like a burn, or like something heavy and jagged had cut into Narcissa's skin. It looked like the slice of a blade, and one that had been healed deliberately so as to leave a scar.

Which, of course, left Draco wondering what the hell had happened and when, without coming closer to an answer.

Lucius turned back to him and said, "My wife would like an exact explanation of the procedure that you claim can relieve her troubles."

Draco nodded seriously. He hadn't come this far without being able to invent an explanation based on magical theory that would sound plausible, even if it was complete bollocks. He stepped aside a little, as if introducing the fake altar behind him gently to their notice, and said, "You will know that there are rituals that depend on the accumulation of blood and pain in order to work successfully?"

Lucius only nodded. Narcissa's eyes flicked to the altar, and then back to Draco. Draco couldn't tell if there was trust in them or not. He forced himself to proceed without responding to the little gesture.

"I have discovered that a certain kind of ritual may work, _backwards_," Draco said, "with the use of pleasure and saliva instead."

Lucius straightened. Draco kept himself from smiling, but bowed again. Yes, he had thought that would catch his father's attention. It was nonsense, but it sounded like educated nonsense, and Lucius was desperate enough to grasp at any possibility.

"Why saliva?" Lucius asked, with a glance back at Narcissa as if to ask whether she wanted to add anything. She only stood there, though, her hands clasped in front of her and trembling a little, her eyes fixed on Draco, so Lucius faced him, too. "Why not some other liquid from the body? Why not blood itself, which is widely acknowledged as the most powerful magical material that the human body can produce?"

Draco waved his hand. "This is a ritual of the _via negative_, Mr. Malfoy, unbinding instead of binding power and constructions together. If I used blood, it would make the ritual too powerful, and it has the potential to destroy the central object's magical core in that case." More nonsense, but Lucius was too used to reading grimoires and knowing things that other people didn't; he could accept that Draco might have read something that would make that make sense, too. "Instead, saliva is the right consistency, with the thinness, and it comes from the mouth, making a passage for the food that is often a component of the ritual. I presume that your wife would not want to indulge in other sources of pleasure in front of someone else, so having her eat something that she likes is the easiest way to go about this ritual."

For a moment, his father gripped his wand, which Draco had anticipated. He had to admit it made him feel a little sick to talk about his own mother having "pleasure" in front of someone else, but it was part of his plan to get her free, and if it worked, then he would watch his parents have sex, if it came down to that.

Even if he really didn't want to.

His father turned back to his mother and said something else, so quietly that Draco knew there would be no point in trying to listen. He turned slightly aside as if bored instead and studied the walls, the grass in the garden, the arching trees that threw down shadows that dappled the ground and sometimes made his parents' faces hard to focus on.

"We will try it."

Draco turned back to Lucius and nodded. "Then Mrs. Malfoy is willing to lie down on the altar and let me cast the measuring spells?"

"Measuring spells?" Lucius was gripping his wand again.

Draco made a bored gesture. "I need to cast a certain series of charms that will take the place of the information about one usually derived from the blood. Even spilling some blood would be too powerful and disrupt the delicate balance of the ritual, hence the need for these charms instead. If Mrs. Malfoy lies down on the altar, I can cast them better, since I already know the magical properties of the altar and won't mix them up with hers."

One more hesitation. Draco knew without speaking it would be the last time. He put his hand lightly on his wand. _Harry, be ready. This will be the best chance you have to examine her scar and use Parseltongue if you need to._

Finally, his mother came forwards, floating like a ghost, and stretched out on the altar. Draco rearranged her so her legs were side by side but her arms spread out above her head, and her hair flowing and draped over her shoulders. The more fussing he did, the more likely his parents were to accept this as a variation of an authentic ritual.

"Now," he said, and drew his wand to cast some harmless charms.

And Harry began to hiss from the grass.


	20. The Story of the Flaw

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty—The Story of the Flaw_

Harry could feel the resistance the minute he began hissing. It felt as though someone had stretched out a hand and was pressing flat down on his tongue, trying to hold his voice back. Harry sharpened his strength and refused to stop hissing. He knew that Draco was having a bit of a struggle to control Narcissa, but that didn't matter. He hadn't told Harry to stop.

Lucius had whipped towards the sound, but Harry had done his glamours well enough that he couldn't tell where the sound was coming from. Nor, Harry knew, would he have any idea what Harry was saying in the snake language, unless he could tell from the way that Narcissa was shrieking and struggling.

What Harry said, quite simply, was, "_Awaken. Respond_."

The scar on Narcissa's throat danced and writhed. Harry could feel the heavy rippling effect of it, passing across his forehead and face and down to his throat. The scar would bite him if it could get to him, he knew. But this time, it didn't get off Narcissa's neck and come for him. Perhaps something as simple as Draco restraining his mother's wrists, the way he was doing now, was preventing it from moving.

Lucius finally decided the real threat was Draco and not the hissing, and whipped back to face him. Harry opened his mouth to shout a warning, not sure what language it would come out in, but Draco had those Auror reflexes that had comforted Harry when he thought about this before, and he blocked his father's curse before it could manifest.

Then he and Lucius were dueling in earnest, moving away from the altar so that they could get to each other, and Harry knew that he would have to deal with Narcissa by himself.

He turned back to the altar and continued with the hissing, the constant two commands to the scar, repeated over and over.

The scar finally came free.

It raced towards Harry's hiding place, coiling and uncoiling, a thin dark line of evil. Harry did manage to get a good look at Narcissa's neck without it, though, and also without the concealing necklace, for the first time.

It was an absolutely clean cut in her neck, the edges of the flesh sliced away as though what lay between them had been Vanished.

Harry had to smile. He knew, now, that the scar and the wound that had made it were older than the necklace and the mirrors, that they had been used to control it instead of the other way around.

The scar slid straight towards him through the grass, and Harry flicked his wand down and to the right. He was _not _going to have this bloody thing intimidate him the way it had done last time, and accordingly, he had prepared a little surprise for it, studying some of the books they had found in Cuthbert's Corner and Kreacher had cleansed of Dark magic.

Some wizards had conducted rituals of sacrifice, and some had found it convenient to have a spell that conjured a ritual circle at a moment's notice, around whatever had escaped from their current one and was attacking them. It was only a guess on Harry's part that this would work, but the circle slammed into being around the scar, and it was made of blood because he thought it should be, and the scar slid to a halt behind the inner edge, as though it had banged into an invisible wall.

Harry took a moment to crouch there before he got up. That spell didn't make a visible cut on him, but it still took blood from his veins—it just Vanished it directly from inside and into the circle instead of drawing it from somewhere on his body. He had to endure the dizziness and the urge to sick up that inevitably came from blood loss.

In the meantime, he heard sharp cracks and sharper voices from beyond the grass. Draco was dueling Lucius, Harry knew, and holding him at bay for the time being. Since his circle seemed to be doing the same thing for the scar, Harry leaned out of the bushes so that he could see the duel, ignoring the way the scar banged frantically against the magic caging it.

Lucius and Draco weren't casting at the moment. Draco had an intent look on his face, as though he could do this for hours. Lucius, on the other hand, looked half-crazed, breathing so hard that Harry was surprised he hadn't dropped his wand. Sweat ran down his forehead, and blood from a cut on his cheek.

"Who are you?" Lucius whispered, sounding as though he had said the same thing for hours. "Who hates us so much, who so wishes our demise, that they would battle against us like this?"

"Someone you forgot," Draco said, and then gave his head a little shake. Harry could see him catching himself back from the temptation to tell Lucius everything, that he and Narcissa had a child they had forgotten. That wasn't in the plan, and grant Draco credit, he was aware of that. "Someone who has a claim to these stones that could replace yours."

Harry nodded. That was a good tactic, both to divert Lucius's attention and to give him some other mental path to pursue. He would think that Draco was a Crabbe now, or someone who had bought the manor from the Crabbes.

Lucius sneered. "You must see that I cannot duel you as well as you would duel me," he said. He lowered his wand and gave Draco an ironic bow. "If you brought me here to kill me, that will be easily accomplished."

"No one wishes that." Draco gave his father a cool look. "I wish, in fact, to heal Mrs. Malfoy of her problem, as I said to you once before. But the help I brought with me would hardly be acceptable to you. He has tried to aid you, and you rejected him." He turned to face Harry. "Mr. Potter?"

They hadn't specifically discussed this deception, because they hadn't thought Harry would use his Parseltongue so quickly. But Harry had decided that was the best thing to do, and just as Draco had fallen into line with it once he realized what was happening, Harry thought he could do the same now, and continue the lie Draco had begun.

"Mr. Malfoy," he said, and nodded to Lucius, who was staring at him in silence. "Will you _finally _leave me alone long enough to try this? I can do something, I think, but not if you keep setting Ministry people on me every time I start to use Parseltongue."

"You have every reason to hate my wife." Lucius took a step back as if he would circle to the side and get another bead on Harry, but Draco aimed his wand at him again, and Lucius fell still in frustration. "Letting you hiss too long at her scar would condemn her to death."

"No," Harry said. "She saved my life in the Forbidden Forest when she lied to the Dark Lord. You can think of this as the repayment for the debt that I never gave her."

Lucius squinted at him, seemingly confused. Harry thought he knew why. Narcissa had lied to Voldemort to save Draco's life, but for Draco's parents, they now had no child. They must have wondered before about the motives for Narcissa's action, or perhaps they simply hadn't thought them through in much detail.

"You tire me," Lucius whispered. "But it seems, for the moment, that I have no choice but to yield." He hesitated, then folded his arms so that his wand was pointing off to the side. "You have a reputation as a merciful man, Auror Potter. Do not hurt her."

Harry nodded, recognizing the plea for what it was. Then he burned the grass he'd hidden in away to the sides with rapid flicks of his wand, so that Lucius could make out the scar coiling and slithering back and forth in the ritual circle.

Lucius stirred once, then stood still and watched the scar as though it was natural to have it there. Draco had retreated towards the altar, Harry saw, and Narcissa. Well, that was fine. If he thought Harry would have more luck in dealing with his father right now, then Harry would try.

"What do you know about this?" Harry asked Lucius.

Long moments passed, each one a heartbeat, a beat of the blood. Harry thought it was possible that Lucius wouldn't tell him. Then Lucius met his eyes, and gave what sounded like a little snort of despair, and said, "She has had that for—several years now."

_Not caused by the explosion of the necklace, then, _Harry thought. _I knew it. _He thought of other questions that he could ask, but in the end, only one of them seemed important. "What caused it?"

Lucius's eyes flickered back towards the glamoured altar. Draco could call Harry unsubtle and say that he didn't understand the importance of expressions and little gestures, but this one, Harry understood.

"What kind of ritual did the Ministry use the altar in?" he asked, greatly daring, but not, at the same time. They had the knowledge that enabled him to make the guess. Lucius might not know where that information had come from, but like Harry cared.

Lucius stared at Harry with his mouth slightly open, then closed it again, hard enough to make his teeth rattle. His eyes had gone stern and distant. "It was not the Ministry."

"Interesting." Harry kept his voice pitched low. "Because we found this altar in the Ministry."

Lucius turned his back. Harry watched him, muscles tensed to the point of leaping, ready to move in an instant if Lucius drew his wand. But instead, Lucius just paced back and forth a little, turned to look at Narcissa again, and said, as if addressing a different audience than Harry altogether, "It was a subgroup of the Ministry. Not the whole thing."

Harry kept from rolling his eyes with an effort of will. The distinction was important to Lucius, so he would pretend it was important to him—for a little while. "Then are you going to tell me what they did? Or enough about it to enable us to help your wife? There's really no way that we can without knowing the content of the ritual, you know."

Lucius whipped back to face him, and Harry's wand was at the level of his throat before he knew he was going to move it. Lucius disregarded that, though, as much as he seemed to disregard anything. He leaned towards Harry instead, and he was panting and his hands clenching as though he was going to murder Harry on the spot. Harry watched him, and Lucius broke from the stern pose a moment later and turned back towards Narcissa.

"Who is that man?" he whispered. Harry waited for a second, but it was obvious the words hadn't been loud enough for Draco to hear, because he didn't turn around. "How am I supposed to just _trust _him to let him treat my wife?"

Harry cleared his throat. Lucius didn't turn around, though, so Harry spoke, hoping that Draco wouldn't accuse him later of making concessions he shouldn't have made. "He spoke the truth when he said that he had as much claim to these stones as you do. Otherwise, I can only say that he's pure-blood, and under a glamour. We understandably don't want to reveal our real identities."

Lucius swung around again. His face was pale enough that Harry thought he could see veins in his forehead and all down his cheeks. "Except for you. Your Parseltongue would give it away if your face did not."

Harry shrugged lightly. "I'm on the run from the Ministry anyway, and you already know what I think of your _brilliant _attempts to gain power. Having you know who _I _am makes no difference to our plans." He hesitated, then added, "And besides, this scar has never taken glamours well, anyway."

Lucius gave a single, distracted nod. He said, "I suppose, if I do not explain, you will only try whatever ritual you have on Narcissa without knowing whether or not it will work."

Harry blinked. "I thought you said I was a merciful man."

"I hope you _may _be." Lucius waved his hand at him. "But I know nothing of your partner, and from the way he watches her, he wants to prove an experimental point, no matter what it costs her or whether it would be better to leave it alone."

Harry bit his lip to avoid saying anything, but he wondered what kind of life Lucius had led, not to recognize the emotion on Draco's face. Harry knew love through the glamour. He thought he knew family love, even. Just because he hadn't seen it directed at _him _often didn't mean he had never seen it.

"Well," Harry said at last, "I can't fully speak for what my partner might do. But you have a chance to keep your wife from going insane, Mr. Malfoy. You can even say that we owe it to you, since I broke the mirrors and necklace that were protecting her. For the last time. What did the Ministry do to her?"

Lucius seemed to spend one more moment contemplating all the ways his plans had failed, and then he sighed and said, "She wanted to show—certain people—that she was worthy of taking up a cause they had abandoned."

Harry snorted. "Can you be less cryptic? We _do _want to heal her, but we need information, and right now, I can't say what information is going to be important."

Lucius took a step towards him, looked at Harry's wand, and halted again. "She was hoping that former Death Eaters, and other Dark pure-bloods left leaderless by the fall of the Dark Lord, would accept her in his place," he snapped. "Is that clear enough for you?"

Harry shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He was sure that Draco still had Narcissa under control, or he wouldn't have risked taking his eyes off Lucius for that long.

_Of course that's happening. Because no one ever learns._

Harry sighed and looked at Lucius again. "How did she think she would be able to convince them to follow her? And why her, and not you?"

Lucius frowned, a ripple that seemed to travel through most of his body before ending up on his face. "I was—Marked. Someone they saw make bargains with the Ministry to avoid spending too much time in Azkaban or losing too much of my money. Narcissa argued, and rightly, that they wouldn't follow someone who had made too many compromises. But Narcissa hasn't made those. She wasn't tried by the Ministry as harshly, thanks to you." He cocked his head at Harry as if thinking Harry would comment. Harry stayed silent, and Lucius continued, "And she's from a family that still commands respect, because of their commitment to the Dark Lord's ideals in the last few generations, while the Malfoy name right now is tarnished."

_The last few generations bar two, you mean._ Harry had to bite his lip to avoid saying anything about Sirius and Regulus.

Lucius half-bowed his head. "And the _first _thing the Dark Lord did, which convinced us of his connection to the great Salazar Slytherin, was speak Parseltongue."

Harry sighed. "She thought the Ministry could give her the ability to speak it."

Lucius nodded. "They had had—some success with others, other wizards who wanted gifts of wandless magic. They could not make them more powerful with incantations, or increase their magical cores, but single powers were within their grasp. Narcissa underwent a ritual on the altar which mingled her blood with the blood of a snake and then fed it back into her veins."

Draco lifted his head. Harry could see the curled lip and his mouth moving, and knew what he should ask next without even staying to hear the words. "What kind of serpent?" he asked, turning back to Lucius.

"I only witnessed part of the ritual," Lucius said, his hands locking together before he noticed, and put them behind his back instead. "The torches—the firelight, the shadows, it was confusing to see what they were doing—"

"You already told me about a Dark ritual that the Ministry itself conducted, and you've already tried to have me killed," Harry said. "You might as well tell me what kind of snake it was. Unless it's a basilisk, one kind isn't Darker than another."

Lucius still kept wincing, and stood silent for a long time before he again opened his mouth. Harry barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Did Slytherins like to keep secrets for the hell of it? It was absurd, how reluctant Lucius was to divulge information that might save his wife's sanity.

"A cobra," Lucius said at last. "A king cobra. Don't ask me about the sex; I _don't _know that. But I did see that the marking on the hood was stained scarlet. And no, I don't know whether that was natural or magical, either."

Draco moved. Harry glanced at him, and saw him nodding. Apparently he either recognized Lucius's description, which Harry didn't, or something else about it was enough to go on.

"Fine," Harry said. "We're going to try and—" He paused, hoping Draco would fill in the gap.

Draco did, as smoothly as though neither of them had ever intended to drop the thread. "Separate the Blood Cobra's venom out from within your wife's veins, Mr. Malfoy." If it was strange for him to speak of his parents that way, Harry couldn't tell it from his voice. "It may not reverse all the changes that have happened, but it will halt them, and give you time to decide what you want to do next."

Harry nearly applauded. He could understand the reasons Draco had made that decision. He had wanted to help save his mother, but this was as far as he could go, the only debt he felt he owed them. There were some things that Lucius and Narcissa would have to do on their own.

"What is a Blood Cobra?" Lucius's voice was low as he turned back towards Draco. Harry suspected that not knowing who Draco was, and having his wand aimed at Narcissa's throat, still bothered him.

Draco snorted, sounding enough like himself that Harry started a little before reminding himself that it didn't matter what Draco sounded like. Lucius couldn't remember anything about it anyway. "A magical snake that certain wizards have experimented with enough to separate it from the rest of its species. They would have done better leaving it alone. Their venom is blood, now, and their blood poisonous. The experiments were successful in the sense that the snakes can survive, breed, and pass down their traits to offspring. But there is no other safe use for them."

"The Ministry told us that the ritual was safe." Lucius's voice did not shake, but he had an expression on his face that made Harry think he would have liked to let it.

"Of course they would have," Draco said shortly. "Now. What happened instead of your wife gaining Parseltongue, Mr. Malfoy?"

Lucius shut his eyes. "The cut that they transfused the—Blood Cobra's—venom into did not heal properly. The scar was animated from the very first, but we thought that a side effect of the ritual. It turned out to be the main outcome. Only later did I find out that the Ministry was not as effective at instilling these gifts of wandless magic as it claimed. My wife did receive a gift, but it was this scar, not the Parseltongue. And while Parseltongue, from snakes, can soothe it, my wife still cannot understand it."

"The mirror that I shattered was part of the protections against it?" Harry asked quietly.

Lucius nodded, still not looking at either of them. "Real snakes are too unpredictable with speaking Parseltongue consistently, so we recorded sounds that a wizard using a Translation Charm assured us were Parseltongue words. Perhaps he was wrong. But as long as the sound came through the mirrors, which were linked with the necklace, then the scar was soothed. And it was an extra safeguard. The snakes carved on the mirrors laid down a charm over the scar that ensured it slept most of the time."

Harry said, "Until I broke one."

"Yes." Lucius turned his head, and it was hard to meet his eyes. "And it became obvious that the scar was awake again, and the stress of sharing her body with something else—a separate being, one that she could not command—was driving my wife insane."

"I know how to cure her, then, Mr. Malfoy," Draco said. "At least, I know how to keep the situation from worsening. I will remove the Blood Cobra's blood from her veins, performing the ritual in response, and my partner will burn the scar."

Harry blinked. "Excuse me?" He didn't know why Draco would want him to cauterize the wound. It seemed like it would be the natural point of entry for Draco's magic, since it had been the cut the Ministry had poured the poison through.

Draco jerked his head at the ritual circle Harry had imprisoned the scar in. "Burn it. So that it cannot get back to her and try to become part of her once more."

Harry straightened his shoulders. Lucius was eyeing him, and looked like he might have started to doubt the story that Harry and Draco were partners in magical theory and ritual working together. "Of course." He glanced at the scar, which had given up on thrashing against the boundaries of the circle and lay coiled in the middle. Even as he watched, though, the thick head rose like a question mark and looked at him without eyes.

"We have what we need here," Draco said, talking to Lucius, or at least he was when Harry turned back around. "We only need your permission, Mr. Malfoy, for when we might begin."

Lucius gave him a thick smile and stepped away with his palms raised towards Draco. "We are in your hands."

Literally, Harry knew, and ignored the way that Draco's smile seemed to curdle and kindle, both at once. Draco glanced at him. Harry nodded.

_I'm game to try this if he is._


	21. The Cure

Thank you again for all the reviews!

This is the last chapter of _Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity. _Next week will be a one-shot, called "The Horn That Was Blowing," followed by a longer chaptered story.

_Chapter Twenty-One—The Cure_

Draco turned to face his mother, still restrained on the fake altar with the charms that he had cast on her before joining the duel with his father. His heart pounded, slow and serious, and he had to keep himself from biting his lip. He wondered if they should have brought the real altar after all, to make sure that their ritual had real power behind it.

But he shook his head as he thought about that. Since the original ritual to pollute his mother with the Blood Cobra's venom had been performed on that altar, memory-echoes of it might have popped up, the stone remembering what it had been used for, and that would have hindered more than helped.

He thought he knew how to perform this ritual. _Thought. _He was not certain.

But it made sense that, if one had become twisted through some sort of ritual, performing the ritual in reverse ought to undo the damage. Unwind it back, Draco thought, tapping his wand against his palm until he noticed his father watching him and stopped. Pour the blood into its original container. Cleanse the blood that had been mixed with the blood of an alien species.

"How do you want to do this?" Harry had moved forwards to his shoulder and spoke into his ear, gently, so that Lucius wouldn't hear.

Draco waved an idle hand, and then smiled at Harry and knelt down beside the altar. He knew the way he _had _to begin, although he suspected it would anger his father: he had to check the strength of the binding charms that held Narcissa in place.

"What are you doing?" Lucius asked, as Draco had expected. He stood off to the side, not trying to interfere, but he shifted as Draco looked at him, to try and see everything they were doing.

"Making sure that she doesn't move around during the procedure," Draco said crisply. It made it sound official, he thought, to call it a procedure, even more than if he had named it a ritual. "She didn't during the official transfer of blood, did she?"

His father folded his arms with a frown and watched them for a moment. "She did not," he said at last, his voice so thick and reluctant that Draco relaxed a little. That was the familiar tone that Lucius had used to use to consider any idea new to him, like the idea that Draco had presented him with when he turned twelve, that his father should buy new brooms for the Slytherin Quidditch team the next year. "But they managed it without binding charms. She held still."

"I find it hard to believe that they didn't do something so she wouldn't flinch in pain and interrupt all their work," Draco said dryly.

"How _dare _you imply that my wife would flinch—"

Harry glided between them. "Mr. Malfoy, does it matter what we imply, as long as we heal your wife?" he asked wearily. "I thought that you had agreed to give us the chance to cure her."

Lucius stood so still that his body seemed emptied of life. Then he inclined his head in a curt little nod, a bob so brief that Draco might have missed it if he didn't know his father. From his blinking, Harry _had _missed it.

"Do what you must," Lucius said harshly, and turned away.

Draco swallowed and looked at his mother again. She was breathing softly, but not struggling against the bonds anymore. Draco thought she might not know they were there. She had seemed less than conscious ever since the scar climbed away from her body, which would make sense if it was intimately connected to her, both mind and soul.

"What spell do you want me to use to burn the scar?" Harry asked, his voice the portrait of calm professionalism.

"The hottest one you can," Draco said, barely moving his lips. He didn't think that his father would be impressed with their professionalism if he could hear the _substance _of Draco's conversation with Harry. "It's a magical thing, and part of her. I—don't even know if it can be destroyed without harming her."

Harry reached out and put a hand on Draco's shoulder. He held him so firmly that his arm didn't even tremble, and Draco blinked quickly because he couldn't afford to close his eyes right now. "We'll manage."

"You mean you will." Draco had to point that out. If Harry was expecting help with burning the scar, Draco wouldn't be able to give it.

"I mean we," Harry said. "You have your part, and I have mine." He gave Draco a fleeting smile, and stepped back, turning to face the ritual circle of blood he'd drawn in which the scar was trapped.

Draco rose to his feet and nodded remotely to Lucius. The skills that his parents had drilled him in would stand him in good stead now, to preserve his expression and make it seem as if he had no doubts. Draco knew how often his father had used those particular skills to mask uncertainty, but now, the intimate knowledge only flowed one way.

"We will need space," Draco said. "If you will stand back, please."

Lucius gave him a long look before he did. He was suspicious. Draco restrained himself from a shrug with some effort. Well, Lucius should have backed away before now, and maybe his mother would already be cured.

_If we can do it. _Draco hadn't known what had happened to her before his father told the story, and he wasn't sure that reversing the ritual would be either enough or as simple as he made it sound.

But he settled his shoulders and nodded to Harry. Harry nodded back, and lifted his wand.

This was all either of them could do, functioning on the same strength, working with the same soul.

And Draco let himself glide forwards into the first spells.

* * *

Harry turned towards the scar, his wand already feeling heavy in his hand. He thought he knew what he would have to cast, but it would take a lot of energy, and even then, he wasn't completely sure that he would have the strength needed to burn a magical being that was a thin line of shadow.

Not even shadow, _power, _Harry thought, staring at the scar as it began to slither around the inside of the circle. That, and maybe skin. It had been part of Narcissa's body in the way that the Dark Mark had become part of Draco's, but perhaps it was an even stranger relationship. As far as Harry knew, the Dark Mark had never got up and tried to run away.

On the other hand, he hadn't ever spoken Parseltongue to the Mark on Draco's arm, either…

_And this is putting off what you know you need to do._

Harry grimaced and held out his wand, above the "wall" of the ritual circle. Once his magic crossed the boundary, the scar could do the same, which was a great argument in favor of getting this right the first time. "_Conflagro._"

The flame broke from his wand in a pattern like a firework, reaching arms that aimed straight for the center of the scar. But the blood circle broke in the same second, and the scar flipped itself in the air, away and back from the reaching flames, and then raced towards Harry as fast as a cobra.

Harry spat _Conflagro_ again, and surrounded himself with a circle of fire. He wondered if the scar could jump that, too, but it didn't seem inclined to try. Instead, it circled around the edge of the ring like a deadly shadow, eyeless head always aimed straight at him.

Lucius said something derisive, or so Harry assumed, from beyond the barrier. When was Lucius ever _not _derisive towards Harry?

That didn't matter. What mattered was burning the scar, destroying it before it destroyed him, and keeping his promise to the Malfoys—and more importantly, to Draco. Harry wouldn't be here if Draco hadn't wanted it.

_Can you do it? _

Draco had asked the question without words, dropping Harry straight into the middle of this situation. Harry smiled, grimaced really, and the scar paused for a second, head lifted towards him, twisting back and forth. Harry breathed out, and with his breath came the next incantation, the stronger, Darker spell that he had held back before now.

"_Flamma animae_."

The fire took shape in front of him, above the intense burning that the Conflagration Curse had caused. It was a little spark of blue at first, and then formed into the shape of a candle-flame, and it turned white, and the most brilliant point of fire Harry had ever seen was hovering in front of him. Harry nodded. Then he glanced at the scar, and the floating point turned with him.

He focused on the scar, sending the silent command to the white flame along the temporary bond they shared—a bond of will. What he wanted, the flame wanted, for as long as it existed. _Burn it up._

The white flame glided out, moving slowly until it had floated away from the Conflagration Curse. Then it darted down.

The scar reared to meet it. For a second, Harry thought he saw the wisp of a forked tongue sticking out the end of it, but it was so sudden and savage that he couldn't be sure. Then the flame and the scar clashed, and that was the beginning of the end.

White fire lined the scar from end to end. It looked less like a shadow now than a dark window into some brighter world. Harry held his breath as they wrestled, flame and shadow. He wasn't sure that even the Soul of Flame spell was Dark enough and strong enough to destroy this piece of ritual magic, but he thought it had a good chance.

Slowly, the scar began to shrink, writhing all the while in protest. Harry hissed in Parseltongue to it, telling it to be still, to let go, and the end that resembled a head jerked towards him once.

That made the burning go even faster, white patches breaking through the grey-black line of it. Harry smiled. He'd hoped distracting the scar might work that way.

The scar made one more determined attempt to break through the circle of fire, in a place where the flames left a tiny gap, and Harry stepped hastily back. But then he narrowed his eyes and channeled more will into the Soul of Flame spell. _Destroy it utterly. Wipe it out. Make sure that it can never come back again._

There was a brief flower of white light, and the scar vanished in the midst of it. Harry spent a second breathing, and then nodded. Yes. That was the way it should be.

He had done what he could. He banished the fire and then the circle of blood, just to make sure that no one else could do anything with his blood, before he turned to face the altar, and see how Draco was getting on.

* * *

The minute Draco cut into the slash on his mother's neck, she began to scream.

The sound would have made him flinch if part of him hadn't expected it, and he kept his hand absolutely steady. He did raise his wand and cast a Silencing Charm, however, because there was no saying that the sound wouldn't distract him later, or Lucius, or Harry. He caught a glimpse of his father from the corner of his eye, and it seemed as though Lucius was on the verge of stepping forwards and intervening.

After the charm, Narcissa's mouth still opened and closed steadily. Draco nodded. She might as well do that, and then she could go on releasing the emotion. But he couldn't allow it to distract him or do anything else that would make his hand slip.

He cut deep into the slash with delicate motions of his wand. He had no ritual knife here, and he didn't know what the original had been made of anyway, in terms of metal or stone. Using certain materials that weren't the same as the original could have a negative effect, or might even react to the slash the way that Potions ingredients sometimes reacted to each other. Better to use the absolute bare necessities for a cut and the restoration he would make on top of it.

When he had the slash open, he could see blood welling up along the sides. Draco cast a few quick charms he had learned from Professor Snape, the kind that would keep blood from spilling to the ground or into a cauldron and potentially ruining a potion. These kept the blood trickling in thin streams around the edges of the slash and then looping back on itself, growing thicker over time, instead of coating the side of Narcissa's neck and making things even more difficult for him.

Draco plunged his wand into his mother's wound and closed his eyes, divorcing himself, furiously, from the way that he _wanted _to react. What he _wanted _to do was flinch and jump back and find some other way of dealing with this.

But what he wanted was not at stake. His mother didn't know there was any relationship between them anymore. Neither she nor his father would be any more disgusted or overwhelmed by the fact that Draco was doing than they would be by the thought of a stranger doing it. That was what he was to his family, a stranger.

His breathing evened out. He spoke the seeking spell, the incantation that would find the Blood Cobra's venom in her veins, with an equally steady voice.

The spell dived from his wand into the slash, and then into her body, twining through her veins, making them glow. Draco opened his eyes and nodded. As he had expected, the blood and the venom it carried with it had diffused throughout her body, so deeply mixed with hers that no ordinary means could pull them apart.

But Draco didn't intend to use ordinary means.

He lifted his wand out of the slash again. The red glow remained where he had put it. Draco gathered more of his magical energy, still in body for a second, but with a whirlwind of power rising further and further inside him, pointing up towards his head in a long, slender spiral.

"_Abalieno cruorem_."

He heard Lucius shout, distantly. He must have recognized the spell and, not knowing what Draco intended before now, objected to having it applied to his wife.

Draco hardly had a choice, though, and when he opened his eyes and gazed remotely down on his mother, he saw the spell working as he'd intended to.

A line of white, flame-white, the same color he sometimes saw coming from Harry's direction when he glanced away from his mother for a second, was making its way down Narcissa's body. It traced around the contours of her veins, following the red line of the blood that he'd marked out with the seeking spell. It continued to glow for a few seconds, and his mother's mouth stopped moving in the scream, although she still struggled against the bonds. Everything seemed poised, perfect, ready to fall.

Then Lucius tried to come forwards, and Harry stopped him. Draco knew that from the flash of the spells from that direction. He couldn't afford to glance away, to look. The only restitution he could make right now was to sit with his mother as _she _screamed.

Because she was screaming, her head tossing back for a second and then falling into the grip of more binding charms that Draco had prepared to take effect in case she had to do this, her mouth open and panting.

The white line traced around the red, and glowed, and then began to yank, to separate the Blood Cobra's blood from Narcissa's. Narcissa's skin parted the way the slash at her neck did, open and gaping. Her own blood stayed within her veins, but the venom dripped out of her, thicker and redder than any human blood.

The process was painful, of course, the venom escaping through the nearest pores on the surface of the skin. When Draco glanced at his mother's face, it was oozing out her eyes, forcing its way through her ears, cascading up in a fountain out of her throat. She couldn't move now, but her arms still flexed and tried to twist in the hold of the bonds, and her mouth parted around the streams of blood as though she was opening it to let them escape, instead of to emit sounds of pain.

Draco touched her shoulder, and tried to ignore the venom that soaked his hand in response. This was the only way he could be with her now, or apologize for what he'd had to do.

The blood finally stopped flowing, and Narcissa fell back, her face white. Draco stirred his wand along his arm, and a cut opened down his own vein in response, spilling the blood out.

Since they had been _born _family, whether or not they still were, Draco's magic was compatible with his mother's. He could transfer blood into her veins, in a procedure he had read of being used to rescue new vampires, and it should hold her, at least until Lucius could either take her home and work on her himself or get her to a real Healer.

Lucius was hammering and shouting on something, perhaps a barrier that Harry had raised around himself or around Draco and Narcissa. Draco couldn't look. He couldn't be sure whether Lucius would interrupt them in the middle of the transfer, a delicate situation. He could be sure of nothing but that his own blood was spilling into his mother's veins, and that her chest was rising and falling faster now, and that a slight rosy color was creeping into her cheeks, erasing the dangerous pallor from before.

Draco knew he would be staggering in a moment, but that was another reason why he had sat down before. Now he waved his wand and sealed his veins again. He had given as much blood to his mother as he could without endangering himself. They would both need Healers—or help, since Draco couldn't go to a Healer—but they should live until then.

Draco let the bonds go, and removed the Silencing Charm. His mother only screamed for a second, however, before her head fell back and her mouth shut. She took a great, heaving breath, deeper than Draco would have thought she could manage at that point, and then opened her eyes and stared up at him.

Draco felt his own heart leap weakly before he remembered that he wore a glamour. She would remember nothing.

And her eyes were sane.

Draco touched her shoulder once more before he forced himself to draw back. He had done what he could. He had done _all _he could, the only debt he owed his mother, and atoned. Now they would have to survive on their own.

She turned to track his progress, and her eyes narrowed, her lips firming into a frown that Draco would have feared he was a child. Now, he could gaze calmly back at her, and nod a little in encouragement. Narcissa raised a hand and touched the slash in her throat as though she remembered it but didn't know what had caused it, and then stood up.

Draco turned with her, although he didn't try to rise to his feet from the altar. There was a series of linked Shield Charms between him and Lucius, but they parted for Narcissa. Harry was standing on the near side, a hand reaching out towards Draco. Draco clasped his wrist and nodded to him.

Harry smiled at him once before he faced Draco's parents. Draco remained quiet, watching them. He had to turn his head away when Lucius embraced Narcissa, though. He knew he would never receive a touch like that from either one of them again, and it hurt to know.

"Mr. Potter."

It was Narcissa, her voice so cool. Draco glanced up at that. She looked at him, but her eyes left him almost at once to go back to Harry, whom she knew. She was bathed in blood, front and center and robes, but the slash in her neck had become bloodless again, a simple cut that she could heal or cover up with a glamour. She let her hand touch it as she gazed at Harry.

"Yes, Mrs. Malfoy?" Harry's voice was like the one he had used to make the bargain with Lucius, calm and cool and neutral.

"This pays for the life-debt that you owed me," Narcissa said.

Harry didn't smile, but his voice was dry as he said, "I certainly _hope _it would."

Lucius pulled on Narcissa's arm, as though he wanted to urge her away, but Narcissa stepped neatly back and came a step nearer instead. "It has always puzzled me," she murmured, "why I would lie for you when I had no real reason to do so, and much to gain if the Dark Lord won. Can you clear up that mystery for me? It is as though a mist lies over that part of my life, and I cannot recall a clear memory from it."

Draco thought he was the only one who saw the way Harry's hand tightened on his shoulder, because Harry was standing so that his body, and the shimmer of the Shield Charms, blocked Draco's parents from seeing him properly. But Harry took a deep breath and returned, "I think that you had a powerful motive because you thought about the power that you could gain if the Dark Lord died, but also about what you would gain should he live. You balanced and weighed those things against each other, and for some reason, you decided that you would have better lives if you lied for me. You told me that much, but you never told me what tipped the balance in your mind."

Narcissa made a soft, thoughtful sound. "I suppose I shall never know now," she said. "Perhaps my mind blurred the matter to protect me from the consequences of a wrong decision." She nodded to Harry and, once, to Draco. "This has at least reassured me that seeking power is more complicated than I thought."

She turned away.

Draco clenched his teeth so that he wouldn't reach out to her. He sat still so that he wouldn't appeal to Lucius, who also looked back before they left the manor completely.

Then they were gone, with twin cracks of Apparition, and Harry knelt down in front of Draco and hugged him, shielding him from sight more effectively than any charm could have.

Draco shut his eyes tightly, but a few tears escaped. Only a few, because even if he was utterly alone with Harry in his own house, he didn't think he could really weep.

Only a few tears. Fitting for an ending.

Harry kissed his cheek an endless time later, and whispered, "Are you ready to go now?"

Draco opened his eyes, and nodded. "Yes. Let's go take down the Ministry, and cure the twisted, and do anything else we can to put a spike in their wheel."

Harry gave him a feral smile as he assisted Draco to his feet. "Taking down the Ministry sounds good as a first goal. We can talk about the others later."

They left together, Draco leaning on his shoulder with his eyes shut.

Harry, perceptive the way he could sometimes be, walked with his arm around Draco, and Side-Alonged him to Cuthbert's Corner, a swift leap into the dark.

b**The End./b**


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